


In the Woods

by gotthebiggayquelquefois



Series: A Different Time [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, High School AU, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, i kinda wrote scully as socially anxious, mulder is bisexual, scully is demisexual, small town AU, this is getting kinda angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 35,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23277766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotthebiggayquelquefois/pseuds/gotthebiggayquelquefois
Summary: Mulder and Scully  but they meet in high school. Basically the same but they are dumb teenagers falling in love and uncovering conspiracies rather than dumb adults. Everything is a little gayer and there is like, mental health problems and shit. Also, slight trigger warning for emotional abuse, maybe? i'm not sure
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Series: A Different Time [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1800697
Comments: 30
Kudos: 91





	1. Chapter 1

Coming From a small town, Dana Scully was sure she would know everyone who was going to her high school. In her town, there were only two middle schools, and she knew everyone in hers by name and every I the other one by reputation. There would be only sixty people in her grade at her high school and she felt effectively prepared for it. Aged 14, Dana Scully hadn’t seen much of the world beyond the small town of Fort Parburgh. She knew the woods and the mountains and the fields and the river and the lake and of course the town itself. She knew the people and the things they did. She knew all the things that happened, and out of all the things she knew almost all of them were boring.

On the first day of high school, she snook out early in the morning, hoping to avoid her parents and siblings getting excited about her starting high school. She headed in the opposite direction of school, as she still had two hours before school. She walked out towards the bridge she often frequented by the river. The walk took around half an hour from her house and was through woods. She was wearing boots, a baggy t-shirt and dungarees, so it wasn’t exactly difficult for her to pass through this terrain.

The sun slipped through the trees and lit up the forest as the sun rose, and she breathed in that early morning late summer air that she knew wouldn’t last for much longer. She picked up a soft round stone and twirled it around and around in her hands, perfectly content with herself and the forest and the morning. She reached the bridge that crossed the river. It was over a hundred years old and made of stone that had now turned mossy. If you took off your shoes and rolled up your jeans, as Dana often did, you could wade underneath the arches of the bridge, if the water was going slow enough, and sit on one of the large rocks. It was her favourite place to go alone. Not that she normally went other places with other people. Her mother had described as a girl who mostly kept herself to herself, which Dana saw as an understatement.

This morning, however, she didn’t feel like getting her legs wet, so she walked to the middle of the bridge, and sat on it, draping her legs over the edge. From here, she could see the river flowing from the mountains, and all of the little paths that approached the river from the bigger paths on either side. There were little pebble beaches peppered along the sides of the river that these small paths led to, which were quiet now but on the hottest summer days they would be packed with little kids and their parents.

Her eyes focused on the furthest away pebble beach that she could see, that must have been several hundred yards away at least, almost out of her line of sight. She checked her watch, and realised that she was going to have to leave now if she wanted to make it to school on time. A thousand clichés about not being late on the first day swirled around her head. Her eyes wandered back to the little beach she’d been looking at earlier.

There was a boy standing there now. He must have been around her age, and she squinted, trying to tell who he was, but she couldn’t make him out. Then he suddenly turned to face her, and she could almost feel them making eye contact even though she couldn’t properly see his eyes. She then realised that this boy must realise that the weird girl was sitting on the bridge staring at him, so she hastily jumped up, grabbed her backpack and ran off.

Her cheeks flushed in humiliation a little, and she hoped she wouldn’t run into that boy, whoever he was, at any point in her life. He had been wearing blue jeans, boots, a white t-shirt and he had mid-length brown hair. She tried to associate that image with one of the forty or so boys her age she knew. It could be Ray Shephard, but she couldn’t imagine him being out in the woods and half seven in the morning. Then again, there was no logical reason for her to be out in the woods at that time in the morning either.

She sighed, still secretly trying to figure out which boy it was, and if so how to avoid him forever. She wondered why it mattered. She had never liked a boy. Partly, this was because she didn’t have any girlfriends to gossip or giggle with. The second reason was of course that all the boys in her school were disgusting. So, it shouldn’t really matter what this boy thought of her. But she was still feeling a little anxious from the situation. It must be because he was a boy, she decided.

After all the time she’d spent pondering and questioning, she found herself approaching the gates of her new school. It wasn’t that scary, really. She’d been in this building many times before, and she knew all the people that were spilling in, so she was unsure why her breathing sped up a little bit and her knees turned to jelly as she crossed the threshold and walked into the playground of her new school. There were a series of benches and tables scattered around the outside, and most of these were filled with groups of people, all greeting each other and asking each other about each other’s summer holidays.

She had nowhere to go, and no one to talk to. She could try and find her brother, but she hated his friends and he’d probably just pick on her. She decided to sit on a small wooden bench alone. She only had five minutes before school started, so there was no point in taking her book out. She simply tapped each knee with the correlating hand, one after the other. She tapped her left hand onto her left knee, and then her right and onto her right knee, and so one and so forth. It was a calming way to spend time, and it calmed her unsteady breathing. She remained in this state of tapping and not tapping until the bell rang and she began to move with the crowd into the school.

The route to her form room was already etched into her mind, from the months of mental preparation. Dana entered the room, and then looked to the blackboard, which read “Please choose a seat”. She groaned internally, as she hated watching all those pre-established friendship group clot together like blood, leaving her as the lone cell, the one that shouldn’t be there. In order to maintain neutrality, she sat on the second seat along on the second row from the back and nestled her backpack down between her legs. The room filled up with students, most of whom she recognized from her middle school. As they came in, she watched as they formed their own little groups, of the popular kids, and the sporty kids and the music kids. Unfortunately, there was no groups of quiet kids who don’t like talking but do like science, so Dana spent most of her time alone.

The teacher, Mrs. Rolland’s, shushed the class, and silence fell. Dana relaxed into the quiet, and carefully payed attention for her name to be called out in the register. She payed attention while timetables were handed out and while notices were given out, but when Mrs. Rolland’s started talking about social activities and sports, Dana’s mind began to drift off. She remembered the boy from the river at this point, and so she began searching the classroom for any boy who matched his description. She couldn’t find anyone, and she breathed a sigh of relief. At least that boy wasn’t in her form group, which saved her from a bit of awkward interaction.

Before she knew what was really happening, the forty-five minutes had passed, and it was time for her first lesson. She pretended to consult her timetable, when she knew that she had Biology in Room 13 already. Although there was no reasonable or scientific numbered to be paranoid about the number 13, there was a hint of anxiety within her about having her first lesson in such an unlucky room. Dana considered herself to be wholly scientific. She didn’t believe in aliens or ghosts or astrology or witchcraft. The superstition around the number 13 she blamed on the Catholic upbringing.

She stepped into Room 13 and discovered that it really was unlucky. Unlike the majority of rooms, it didn’t have single seat desks, but double seat desks. This meant she would have to sit with someone else. She checked the blackboard and breathed a small sigh of relief at the fact that seats were assigned. Her seat was in the middle of the second row from the front. Lisa Kelly was sat next to her, which was less of a blessing than the seating plan being pre-designed. She sat at the desk, and began the practice of tapping her knees again, and watching as her class came in.

Then there he was. The boy from the river, with floppy brown hair and blue jeans and a white t-shirt. He turned to consult the blackboard, and Dana prayed that perhaps he would not notice her. Maybe if she deliberately failed all of her science quizzes, she’d get out of this class, but then if that was the case, she’d never be able to become a doctor, which she knew was necessary. However, all hopes of him not noticing her were dashed when he sat down on the table next to her and turned to look at her as he put his bag down on the floor. The bag was light blue and had something drawn on it in a darker blue ink. The boy looked Dana in the eyes, and he conveyed that he recognized her by smiling lightly. She blushed and turned to look at the worn wooden desks. Looking at this boy closer up, she still couldn’t identify him, and began to wonder if she’d ever seen him before. She looked up to check the blackboard to see his name. His name was Fox Mulder. This name was almost foreign to Dana, and she concluded that he must have recently moved to Fort Parburgh. 

The teacher introduced himself, and Dana barely caught his name. Mr. Alman. He began addressing the class, leaning on his desk, “You probably all know each other already, from middle school or just from around town. But there’s someone new here,” he said, pointing at the boy sat on the desk next to Scully, “Fox Mulder. He and his family just moved here from… Rhode Island wasn’t it?” The boy nodded silently and looked down at the desk. “Well, you all make sure you make him feel welcome.” He then began handing out new notebooks to the class and explaining what they would be doing in biology over the next few months. Dana’s attention wandered from listening to what Mr. Alman was saying to wondering why anyone would move to this tiny town from Rhode Island.

The day passed without event. Dana sat alone at break and lunch and noted that Fox Mulder was also in her history class. She read Moby Dick (again) in-between classes and during lunch, and became thoroughly engrossed in the fictional world, feeling as if she was taken away from the world, she was in. The feeling was intoxicating. Sometimes in middle school, she would question whether climbing the mountain and curling up underneath a tree with a book would be better than going to school.

She thought about that as she left school, exhausted. Normally, she would head out to the river or the lake or the woods after school, but today she elected to go straight home. When she got home, she tried to get past her mother who asked about seventy questions as quickly as she could and went into her bedroom. She took off her backpack and placed it at the foot of her chair. She removed Moby Dick from her bag, sat down on her bed and kicked off her boots. She read and turned pages and found herself almost completely gone from her bedroom, until she heard her mother call, “Dana! It’s dinner!” She sighed, put the book down and walked down the stairs to eat.

Bill, Charles and Melissa were already sat down, and her father sat down around the same time as her. Her mother placed the tray of unidentifiable food in the middle of the table, and began giving spoonsful of that to everyone, and then dumping a scoop of mashed potato on the plate next to the other food. Incessant chattering about everyone’s day began, and as usual, Dana began to tune out and focus on her own thoughts of Moby Dick and what homework she’d been given that day and Fox Mulder.

“Starbuck?” she heard the voice of her father calling out to her.

“Yes?”

“I asked you how your day was?”

“Oh. Sorry. I was just daydreaming.”

“Dana, we’ve talked about this. You need to pay more attention when people are talking,” her mother added. “Sorry.” There was silence.

“How was your day though?”

“Fine. Nothing really happened. There’s a new kid at my school.”

“Are they from St. Margaret’s?” her mother asked.

“No. He’s new in town. His name’s Fox Mulder.” Her mother pulled a face that could be likened to disgust or disapproval. “I heard about his family,” she said, wiping her mouth. “He and his mother just moved here.”

“Where’s his father?”

“His parents divorced.” Everyone looked at the floor for a moment because in their good Catholic household, divorce was not mentioned. “Is that why he moved here?” asked Bill.

“No. I believe his sister was murdered.” Suddenly all of Dana’s insides ached with sympathy. Her father didn’t look very pleased, “Can we please return to a nicer topic of conversation?” he asked. And so, they did, but Dana wanted to know more. Curiosity wasn’t good, especially when it came to those things that people didn’t like to talk about. The conversation had been closed, and she didn’t see any opportunity to re-open it. Dana helped her mother clear up the dishes, and then returned to her room, her mind full of thoughts. They were like flies, swarming around a dead body, buzzing incessantly and impossible to ignore.

The homework she’d been given was very minimal. Firstly, there were two placement tests. One for biology and one for maths. She completed them in less than forty minutes with ease. Maths and science were her strong subjects. However, the other piece of homework was a little further out of her comfort zone.

_Make a short presentation about a part of the history of Fort Parburgh that interests you_

Unsure of what to write, Dana tried to think of anything remotely interesting about her town. Interesting things had to have interesting things, surely? She racked her brains. A short presentation about the bridge’s history? It seemed a little basic, but it seemed easy enough as she knew her father had a book about all of the bridges that had ever been built across that river. She went to her living room and removed the book from the large bookshelf by the fireplace. The book was less than a hundred pages long, and she quickly located the three-page spread about the West-wood Bridge. Dana began to write about the iron works who provided the metal for the supports of the bridge.

Within an hour, she was done. By now it was nine o’clock, and Dana saw it fit to get into her pyjamas. She swapped her dungarees for a pair of pyjama bottoms decorated with small flowers and left her baggy t-shirt from the day on. She then began to read Moby Dick again, sat on her windowsill, which she’d padded with cushions a year ago when she got bored of hurting her back while sitting there. Around half-eleven, she moved from the window to her bed, and by two she was asleep with Moby Dick open on her chest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a few more chapters of this, and i intend to carry on writing it, so hopefully more will come up

The next week passed much as Dana had expected it to. She awoke early, went off to the river or the lake before school and read. Then she’d go to school, and work alone and sit alone, reading whenever she got the chance. Then she’d do something after school, perhaps buy an ice-cream or go into the woods. Then she’d go home, do her homework, eat, read and then sleep. By Saturday, she had decided that she was bored of high school. Saturday was unusually warm, and so she decided to go swimming in the lake when her mother asked her if she wanted to go along with her siblings.

The four kids got onto their bikes and began cycling the couple miles to the lake. From April to September, volunteer lifeguards would watch over a marked-out part of the lake so that kids could swim there. In a few weeks, they would leave, and the lake would become a place of danger for another six months.

As they cycled, Dana watched the houses and shops flit by, and wondered about the secrets of all the people in those houses and shops that supposedly had no secrets. Her mother had always chastised her for wondering about those kinds of things, but she had a natural burning curiosity. No one seemed to like it, so she squashed it down inside of her, only ever revealing it to herself in times of boredom. Suddenly, Bill stopped his bike. The others braked and turned to him. “I want some chocolate,” he said, before dumping his bike on the ground and walking into the small corner shop they had just passed.

It was implied that the others were supposed to watch over his bike while he was in the shop, so they similarly dumped their bikes and sat down on the grass. Dana watched the door of the shop, waiting for her brother to return. Two old ladies walked out, and then the priest, who, from the two bottles of grape juice in his hand, had clearly run out of grape juice for kids to drink during communion again. The door opened again, and out walked a certain Fox Mulder. Dana was surprised to see him in a context that wasn’t her history or biology class. He was holding a bottle of pop and wearing black jeans and a sweatshirt. The jeans were too skinny on him and the sweatshirt was too big for him. He looked over to where Dana and her siblings were sat. He made eye contact with Dana again and smiled a little. Dana moved her face slightly, hoping that this small change in her features would appear to be reciprocation for his smile.

Then Bill walked out of the shop, carrying a bar of chocolate, and the kids began to get back on their bikes. Before they cycled off, Dana turned back to see if she could spot that boy again, but he had already gone. The group began cycling again, faster than before, as they were powered by the small amount of chocolate that Bill had given them. They soon approached the lake, and dumped their bikes again, alongside a pile of around thirty other bikes, which clearly belonged to kids who’d had the same idea as them. Dana was wearing a black swimming costume under her jeans and jumper, and she placed all her clothes and items neatly next to her bike, hoping no one would take them.

Normally, no one would describe Dana as fun to be around. “She’d just not much fun,” was something she heard about herself regularly. She assumed this was in reference to the fact that she was quite serious and didn’t like boys or the same kind of music everyone else did and she read a lot. However, when it came to swimming, Dana Scully was a lot of fun. She would dive down and have competitions of breath-holding and dive-bomb and give shoulder carries and have races. She liked to let loose, feeling as if the cool water was a blanket, and if she was underneath it, no one would know who she was.

On that Saturday afternoon, she did all of those things, playing with her brothers and sister for hours, being extremely competitive and having fun. This all came to an end when she began a handstand competition with her sister. She’d been doing a handstand for about fifteen seconds when she decided that she needed to breathe. She stopped doing her handstand and took a breath of air. Her sister laughed at her a little, and then swam off to go annoy her brothers. Dana was annoyed that she hadn’t been able to do a handstand, so she decided to try again. She put her hands down and then kicked her legs up. It was all going fine until she felt the sole of her foot smack into a fleshy mass. She immediately stood up to see what she had kicked.

She found herself looking directly into the face of Lisa Kelly.

Although Lisa Kelly was supposed to be sat next to her in biology the previous week, she hadn’t been as she was still on holiday when school started. She’d got back last night, and Dana had just kicked her in the face. For context, her and Lisa had a very simple relationship. Lisa hated Dana, and as such, Dana was terrified of her.

Now as Dana stared into her face, there was an icy silence. For about twenty seconds. Dana had no idea what to say. Then she realised she should apologise, so she did. Very profusely. Repeatedly. She babbled about how it was an accident and how she didn’t mean to, but Lisa Kelly just continued to stare dead into her face like she might kill her. Eventually Dana’s trail of apologies simmered out and the two stood in silence again. Now Dana realised that Lisa was about half a foot taller than her, and she felt slightly intimidated. She practically flinched waiting to see what Lisa was going to say. For a minute she thought she would just leave her alone, but then Lisa shoved her backwards into the water, yelled “Freak!” and swam away. Dana resurfaced and noticed that at least three people were staring at her.

She swam to the shore as quickly as she could, grabbed her clothes, shoved them in her backpack (which she really should have done earlier) and got on her bike. She cycled away as quickly as she could, the hot leather bike seat burning her thighs. The peddles turned faster and faster, and all Dana could do was imagine a life outside of this God forsaken town, and a life outside of all the things that didn’t seem to stop. The no friends. The people that called her a freak. The loneliness. The fact that her legs became weak at the tiniest amount of fear. The fact that she had never properly liked a boy. The way she didn’t like speaking and the way she knew she was disappointing her parents.

Tears streamed down her face as she cycled, racing to get away from somewhere, not really sure of where she was going. She could go to the river, but she knew it’d be busy today. So, she decided to go home, but she didn’t want to talk to her parents. When she arrived home, she put her bike in her garden, and then climbed the tree beside her window. She coaxed her window open, which wasn’t too difficult as her house was old and not very well maintained. Sliding in through the window, she tried not to make a noise that would alert her parents. She put on her pyjamas and climbed into bed, which is where she stayed until Sunday evening, despite her parents yelling at her, asking her why she left her siblings, asking why she didn’t come in through the door, asking why she didn’t get up.

On Sunday evening, she eventually crawled out of her bed, and moved to sit on her window ledge. She watched the people passing by, which happened every couple of minutes. She lived on a relatively busy street, which wasn’t really that busy, but it was Fort Parburgh. There was hardly anyone here to see anyway. No one that passed by way of interest until around 8:30, when that boy, Fox Mulder walked past. That was the second time she’d seen him in as many days, and if she didn’t live in such a small town, she would be paranoid.

She watched as he walked slowly past her house, his hands in his pockets. A car drove past at around the same time and shone its lights onto his face. They illuminated his features, and Dana was pretty sure she could see him crying.

The next day at school, Dana wondered if she should ask him if he was okay, but considering that she’d never talked to the boy, she thought “Hey I saw you crying last night when I was essentially spying on you,” was not the best introductory phrase. So, she left it alone. In history, the time came to present their homework from the previous Monday. Dana was sent up to do hers second. She gripped onto her neatly written notes, fingers grabbing the edges in an attempt to calm the anxiety. Trying to take herself out of the situation, she simply imagined she was sat under the bridge, in the small nook that the water had borne into a rock. As she imagined that, she simply allowed the words about the people who built the bridge and how they paid for it to flow out of her mouth, unsure whether or not she was saying anything correctly. By the time she reached the end of the speech, she had to shake herself to take herself out of the daydream state she had put herself into.

Only the teacher, Abigail Peters (who clapped at everything) and Fox Mulder clapped at the end like they were supposed to. Dana blushed a little, as she disliked this public of a setting to receive praise. Then a few more boring speeches about shops and statues and war “heroes” came, and Dana barely payed attention. She’d heard all of it before and most of it was lies. Dana tried to tune in to listen, feeling a little guilty. Some kid was talking about the Puritans, and said, “So, obviously, the Puritans were fleeing religious persecution…” which made the little know-it all voice inside of Dana’s head want to say, “No they weren’t.” At the exact same time she was thinking this, she heard a small whisper come from the table behind her. “That’s not true,” said the voice. She turned and saw that the sole inhabitant of the table behind her was Fox Mulder. Dana turned around quickly, before he could see that she was looking. She smiled to herself a little. Maybe not everyone in this school was an idiot.

‘Fox? Do you want to come and do your presentation now?” He nodded, and walked up to the front, and quickly asked, “Could you just call me Mulder please?” The teacher nodded.

Unfortunately, this slight respect for Mulder’s intelligence that Dana had just gained lasted for about two minutes, until he was called up to do his presentation. He read out his title – “UFO Sightings in Fort Parburgh” – and Dana immediately wanted to slam her head against the table. Fort Parburgh was something of a “UFO Hotspot”, and UFO enthusiasts believed it had something to do with the military base located about three miles out of the town center. Throughout her life, she’d heard thousands of stories about government conspiracies and UFO crashes and little green men wandering around the military base where her father worked. He had denied all of these stories and told her that it was simply people’s fear of unknown technology that scared them into believing aliens were responsible for the new plane tests that ran out of Fort Parburgh.

Dana believed her father because it made sense. New things scared people, especially when they couldn’t understand them. So, they relied on simpler explanations to keep themselves calm and feel safe. She expected Mulder to come up with some bullshit about lights in the sky. Despite that, she still decided to listen to what he had to say.

“Unidentified Flying Objects have been sighted in Fort Parburgh as early as 1865. However, objects originally listed as UFOs have since been declassified as such. There are three major urban myths that circulate around UFO sightings in Fort Parburgh. Firstly, the original sightings in 1865. Although at the time, they were believed to be of extra-terrestrial origin, they were simply fireworks let off by the US Army in celebration of the end of the Civil War. In 1953 a diary entry of one of the officers involved with setting these fireworks off was found that corroborates this theory. The lights were described with colourful, fast moving and going in an upward direction. Which is what a firework looks like.”

Dana practically sighed with relief when he started to debunk the three stories about UFO sightings, she’d heard all her life. Perhaps she could still retain a little respect for him.

“And so that is why the reported 1951 sighting were very clearly fake. However, just because these are all very clearly not encounters with extra-terrestrials, it doesn’t mean that Fort Parburgh isn’t the hotspot of UFO sightings that it has the reputation of being. Since the first recorded sightings in 1865, there have been 231 sightings of UFO. Nineteen of these have been explained by the military. Fifteen can be debunked very easily if you read the story. Twelve have been proven to be fake by historians, and six of the people who ‘saw’ UFOs have come forward and said they lied. That leaves 179 sightings of UFOs that cannot be proven wrong in just over a century. That excludes cases of scorch marks, which are unexplainable by known human technology at the time, which have been recorded eight times. The last person recording going into Fort Parburgh who wasn’t part of the military was a four-year-old girl who went in with her father in 1968. Fort Parburgh hasn’t been inspected by anyone for over twenty years, not even by someone checking on the plumbing. The military refuses to comment on why this is the case. Not to mention that over forty people have gone missing in Fort Parburgh over the last ten years! That’s one of the highest…”

Mulder was interrupted by Miss Bank, the history teacher. “I’m sorry Mulder, but you’re about the go over your allotted time, and I think the rest of the class want to go to lunch. He blushed immensely and muttered an apology. He gathered his papers and began to walk back to his desk. Steven Neilson, chuckled as Mulder walked past and muttered “Fucking psycho.” Mulder turned to him, and Dana could see the tears well up in his eyes. He shoved his things into his bag and ran out of the classroom.

Steven was called over to Miss Banks desk and the class filed out. Dana didn’t see either of the boys for the rest of the day.


	3. Chapter Three

The next two days were about as boring as imaginable. Dana couldn’t barely differentiate between them, and eventually life started melting, just as it had done in middle school. On Thursday, Dana walked into Biology. Lisa Kelly still hadn’t shown up to any of the biology lessons, so she felt safe. But then just after the bell rang, Lisa Kelly sat down in the seat next to her and all of Dana’s muscles immediately clenched. She shifted her chair as far to the left as she could and looked down at the ground. She hoped Lisa wouldn’t say anything. “Do I have a disease or something?” she said. Dana turned to her. “No. What?”

“You’re shifting away from me like I’ve got the fucking plague. Its rude.”

“Sorry.”

There was silence as Mr. Almon did the register. He then turned to address the class. “So, as you know, we’re going to start our group projects on Monday. But today, we’re going to get the required dissection out of the way before we start on the group projects.” The class groaned. Dissecting a small frog was nobodies’ idea of fun, and it made Dana sick. She’d have to get over that. She knew she would, if she wanted to become a doctor. Mr. Almon started handing out porcelain trays containing a dead frog laying on its back. Dana looked away. ‘You’re a wimp,” said Lisa, putting on her latex gloves. This drew the attention of Mulder, who looked over to see Dana flinching as Lisa picked up the frog by its foot.

She dropped it on the porcelain tray with a splat. Dana was visibly uncomfortable to anyone who cared. Her hands were clenched around the edge of her chair and she was breathing a little faster than usual. Lisa picked up the frog again and held it closer to Dana’s face. She squealed in fear. “Stop,” said Mulder, “You’re upsetting her.” He was clearly talking to Lisa.

“What are you gonna do, spooky boy? She shouldn’t be such a baby.” Lisa retorted. She picked up the frog again and dangled the frog so close to Dana’s face that one of its feet touched her face. Dana practically screamed, and Mulder said, with a raised voice, “Hey, knock it off!” Lisa started laughing and the whole class was looking and laughing too. Dana ran out of the classroom as fast as she could. Mr. Almon ran after her, and the class only laughed harder. Apart from Mulder, who simply stared icily at Lisa, and muttered something about her mother, which she fortunately didn’t hear. Dana didn’t return to Biology, and since it was the last lesson of the day, Mulder assumed that she’d just gone home. He wanted to check in on her, but he had no idea where to find her, so he just decided to leave it. He’d check in on her tomorrow.

He saw her sat there, under a tree at lunch on Friday. All he had to was walk up to her and ask her if she was okay. And then leave. But she was reading. She looked very interested in what she was reading, he said to himself. Really, Mulder was just afraid to talk to her. He didn’t really talk to anyone after what happened, but he told himself that he didn’t talk to her because he didn’t want to interrupt what she was reading. If Dana hadn’t been so wrapped up in her book, she probably would’ve noticed him walking towards her and then walking back and then walking towards her and walking back. But Moby Dick was a very interesting book and Dana struggled to notice anything other than the words and the feel of the pages under her hands when she was reading it.

Mulder decided it would be best to wait until he saw her in Monday’s biology lesson. That would be more natural than approaching her in his free time.

So, in Monday’s biology lesson, he walked straight in and over to her. She was sat at her desk. “Hey,” he said, looking a little anxious. “Oh. Hi,” she said. But before Mulder could ask anything, Mr. Almon asked them to all go stand at the back while they went into groups. The two were hurried out of their seats and walked off to opposite sides of the classrooms. “Now,” said Mr. Almon, “I want to let you pick your own partners. But if there’s any messing around, I will put you into groups of my choice, is that understood?” The class mumbled an affirmative. “Right, so we’ll go left to right, and you can pick you partners. I’m sure you’ve all discussed who you want to work with already. Lizzy, who do you want to work with?” A blond girl who Dana vaguely recognised from St. Margaret’s walked over to Lizzy and the pair sat together.

Slowly, everyone paired up, until there were four people left. Dana, Mulder, and two boys, both called Joe. “Joe B?” said Mr. Almon, “Who do you want to partner up with Joe?” Joe B mumbled something about not knowing or caring, realised that wasn’t an appropriate answer, and chose the least weird of the three options from his point of view – Joe H. The two went and sat on a desk towards the front. “Okay so that leaves Dana and Fox -sorry, I mean Mulder, together. Take a seat.”

The pair sat down next to each other little awkwardly, refusing to look each other in the eye. Mr. Alman started speaking, “So as I’m sure you all know, this group project is an opportunity for you to study the local insect life. You will actually need to go out into nature to find some sort of insect, not just to lay on your bedroom floor waiting for a spider to run past. I’ll give you time to discuss your plans now.”

Mulder looked over to Scully’s notepad. She had already taken very neat notes that outlined the project.

_Our task is to capture an insect, identify it, sketch it and describe it. We must then attempt to gain an accurate number of the population of that insect living in the area. We must then research and write an essay on the insect’s anatomy, behavior and history. Please note that the method used to capture the insect must be detailed, along with the method used to estimate the population size. Do not deliberately harm any insects in your work._

He of course, knew all of this already, and had a plan for the type of insect he wanted to capture. Scully turned to face Mulder a little awkwardly. “What were you going to say to me? Earlier, I mean?” she asked, still looking down. “Oh, well, I just wanted to know if you were okay after Thursday.” There was a pause. “I’m fine.” Silence again.

“Are you sure?”

“Well I’m used to her, so I’ll be fine.” Mulder experienced that horrible crawling sensation of knowing when someone is being hurt and knowing that you can’t stop it. Memories came spilling back into him and he clenched his fists, not wanting to remember. “Did you have any plans for the project?” Mulder snapped out of his panic. “Fireflies. I want to see a firefly.” Dana laughed a little, and then said to him, “There aren’t any fireflies in Montana.”

“Yes, there are. Researchers spotted five sparkles last year.”

“Sparkles?”

“That’s the name for a group of fireflies.”

“Even so. We’ll never find any around here.”

“One of those sparkles was spotted less than five miles from here. We could cycle up there. I know you have a bike.”

“We’d have to go in the night. Fireflies are nocturnal.”

“Would you not sneak out?”

“What? No. I don’t sneak out.”

“Never?”

“Only when I want to.”

“And you’re telling me you don’t want to see a sparkle of fireflies?”

“We could get killed. Or kidnapped. Like you said.”

“We’d get extra credit for finding a rare insect.” Mulder pulled his notebook out of his bag and showed her the one bullet point he’d taken down.

_Rare = Extra Credit_

“I don’t want to get kidnapped. You know more of the kidnapping victims were girls under 18 than any other group?”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Mulder snapped. There was silence.

“Do you know how to use a gun?”

“Yes,” said Mulder, “Do you have one?”

“I have a BB gun.”

“We could take that.” He smiled at her sweetly, hoping to convince her that way. She pulled a sour face at him and said, “I still don’t want to sneak out. What if I get caught?”

“Have you ever snuck out before?”

“Yes. I told you that.”

“Is there an easy way out of your house?”

“There’s a tree by my window. I can climb down it.”

“Ever snuck out at night before?”

“No.”

“You should practice.”

This is how Dana Scully ended up sneaking out of her house to see Mulder at 11pm, having stolen her mother’s cigarettes. She wanted to get it right. To sneak out for the actual project, she’d need to sneak out her bb gun, which was kept in the same cabinet her mother kept her cigarettes in. So, to practice the whole maneuver, Dana snook downstairs one night after her parents went to bed, and silently opened the cabinet. She stole two cigarettes from the cabinet, closed it and walked back upstairs. She slid open the window, and then climbed out onto the tree, shutting the window behind her. She slid down the tree, and ran off, speeding around the corner, where Mulder was waiting for her. He was wearing shorts, running shoes and a sweatshirt with the words “I want to believe,” messily written across it.

“That sweater is ridiculous Mulder,” Dana said, handing him one of the two cigarettes. The pair sat down on the pavement, resting their feet on the road. “I mean why would a company even put words on a sweater. And what does it even mean?”

“A company didn’t put them there. I did.”

“Why?”

“I wanted people to know how I was feeling. But I didn’t know how to say it.”

“What does it mean.”

“I want to believe.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Believe.”

“Yes. But no one else wants me to.” Dana decided not to push it any further. She’d only known this boy for a couple weeks and he already had her sneaking out to smoke. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit the cigarette. He offered the light to Dana, and she took it. As she realised what she was doing, her heart sped up and her knees turned to jelly. She was terrified. But as she put the cigarette him her lips, she realised she felt excited too. It was the most rebellious thing she’d ever done and the feeling of being bad was almost as intoxicating as getting lost in a fictional universe. She looked over at Mulder, who was already smoking as if he had done it before.

“Have you done this before?”

“A couple times. The people I hung out with in Rhode Island were pretty heavy smokers, so I got involved with what they were doing. I never really liked it.”

“Then why are you doing it now?”

“I’m teaching you to break the rules. To have a bit of fun.”

“For the science project?”

“Yep. I just want to get an A.” There was silence between the two. In an attempt to seem cool, Dana tried to breathe in the smoke, but she immediately began coughing and choking on the disgusting taste. “Ewwwww!” she squealed, throwing the cigarette onto the road and stamping on it. “That is gross! Why would anyone ever do that?” Mulder laughed at her reaction, smiling broadly. She hadn’t ever seen him smile before. “That’s almost the funniest reaction I ever saw to a cigarette,” he remarked.

“What was the funniest?”

“A girl I knew was out with me and some people. She always stayed away from smoking. But one night she was so drunk…” he started laughing again at the memory, “She got up on this bench were all sat on, and screamed _I, Miriam Cole, have eaten a cigarette and it tasted like pussy_!” The two laughed at the reaction. “That was the first and last time I ever saw her smoke.”

“Rhode Island sounds a lot more fun than here.”

“You wouldn’t like it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because. You like it here.”

“And how would you presume to know that?”

“You go out. You sit by the river and go to the lake and sit in the grass.”

“And? I hate it here.”

“No. You hate the people here. You love it here.” Dana stood up, and pulled her jacket around herself, and said, “You don’t have to be pedantic.” Mulder shrugged. “I’m going to go home now, okay?” she responded, hoping that the shrug implied nonchalance to what she’d just said. “Okay. I’ll see you next Wednesday, right? Same time?” he asked. She just nodded and smiled softly at Mulder, before walking back off to her house.

She easily climbed up her tree and slipped in through her window. She looked out of the window behind her, and noticed Mulder stood at the bottom the tree. “I was just checking that you didn’t fall. No one would have found your body until morning, you know.” Scully genuinely smiled, her features melting in a way they rarely did. “Goodnight Mulder,” she said, closing the window and then waving to him. He waved back, turned around, tucked his hands into his pockets and walked away. Scully closed her curtains over. Had she kept them open for a moment longer, she would have seen a certain Fox Mulder turning around, hoping to get a glimpse of her face one more time.

Dana got into her pyjamas, still buzzing with excitement. She curled up under her covers, and as she fell asleep, she found that she was looking forward to next Wednesday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i might have gone a bit heavy on the msr content this chapter but idk how to write a slow burn so this whole fanfic will probably be a mess. oh well. tell me if you think another chapter would be fun.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i know i haven't added to this in a while, but i'm still writing it and i thought i'd add another chapter

Fox Mulder had shaken up Dana Scully’s life. She realised this as she awoke on time on Tuesday morning, still buzzing with excitement from the night before. She got up and showered, and ate her breakfast and packed her schoolbag, knowing that she’d done something bad the night before and that no one on the Earth (apart from her and Mulder) knew about it.

However, this was not normal. Sneaking out at night to see someone was not normal. Talking to someone new was not normal. Dana was no longer keeping to herself. Now she had someone else. It was quite possibly one of the most terrifying experiences of her life.

As she walked to school, Dana tried to instill a little normality in her life. She tapped her left leg and she placed her weight on it, and then did the same to her right leg. She thought only of what would happen next in Moby Dick (which she knew already, as she’d already read it twice) and if would ever learn to braid her hair properly. Of course, by now she’d learnt how to do it. She knew the mechanics of braiding hair but whenever she did it, her hair ended up looking like a fat spiky tail rather than the scholarly look she was going for.

She also supposed that if she wanted to look scholarly, she needed to stop wearing baggy jeans and jumpers her grandmother had knitted for her. Oh well. Comfort was more important, supposedly, although any time she put on a dress she decided that anyone who claimed a dress could be comfortable was an idiot. It wasn’t that she disliked how she looked, more that she disliked having to be careful in her movements and not to get a single spec of dirt on the intricate fabric.

She was snapped from her thoughts about her fashion sense by Fox Mulder, who looked like a small puppy as usual, with messy brown hair covering his forehead. “Hi,” he said.

“Hey,” Dana muttered a little awkwardly, as she wasn’t very good at this whole small talk thing. Fortunately, however, it seemed that Mulder had no interest in that. “Are you busy after school?”

“Yes.”

“Doing what?”

“Homework.”

“Do you mind if I tag along?”

“To me doing homework?” she asked, looking at him a little skeptically. It was a look he was never going to stop seeing, not that he knew this at that point. “Why?” she asked, still a little curious. Mulder looked a little sheepish. “My mother is working late tonight,” he said, and then looked at the floor, “And I forgot my key. I have nowhere to go. Other than my mother, you’re really the only person I know in this town.” Dana felt a little uncomfortable about the idea of this boy she barely knew interrupting her homework routine, perhaps even sitting on her bed or greeting her parents. She shuddered at the thought of dealing with that social situation. As if he could read her thoughts, he said, “We don’t have to do homework. We could just go out. I just want someone to hang out with for a couple of hours.” She looked at him a little icily, and asked, “How old are you Mulder?”

“14. I’m nearly 15 though. Why?”

“Because most kids our age can remember their keys.”

“I’m just pre-occupied, is all.”

“Whatever, Mulder. I was going to go read by the river after school. You can come with me.” Mulder’s face melted into a puppy-dog smile. “I’ll meet you by the flagpole after school, if that’s okay?” Dana nodded, and then walked off, clutching her books to her chest. For Mulder, the day passed very quickly, as the thought of actually doing something after school was enough to pull him through the monotonous day.

By half three, Dana was stood by the flagpole, waiting for Mulder. He hadn’t shown up yet, and even though it was only 15:31, she was still mildly irritated. Punctuality was something that had been drilled into her from a young age. So, when Mulder appeared at 15:33, she gave him a small lecture.

“You know it’d good to be on time.”

“I was on time.”

“You were three minutes late.”

“That’s barely late.”

“A lot can happen in three minutes.” Mulder looked to the floor and twiddled his hair, looking as if he’d been mildly upset. “Come on. It should take about half an hour to get where I want to go.” The pair set off, walking side by side in silence. Although the silence was comfortable, Dana felt as if she should say something. That was the proper thing to do, after all. The trouble was that she didn’t know what to say. She looked around, hoping for some inspiration. They were passing a garden full of wildflowers, so she just asked, “What’s your favourite flower?” She immediately regretted it, as it was weird and obviously inappropriate. “Why, are you thinking of buying me flowers sometime, Scully?”

“No. I was just asking.” Mulder’s face dampened a little. In a quite defeated and much less cocky voice, he said, “Well I like pink dahlias, in case you ever did.” He paused. “What are your favourite?”

“I don’t know. I never really thought about it.” The pair entered the forest, and the light began hitting their faces in strange triangles that warped and twirled as they moved. The trees immediately encased them from the outside world, protecting them from the things that they feared. Dana liked that effect that the trees had on her, which is why she found herself in the woods so often. There was no more trying to figure out how to say things right or pressure to do well in school or scathing looks from her mother, there was just her.

Now, there was him too. It bothered her a little. Her bubble had been invaded. She guessed that she’d just have to learn to deal with it. There could be other people in her life. She could let someone in. “Are you going to kidnap me?” Mulder asked.

“What?”

“We’ve been walking for…” he paused to check his watch, “forty minutes, and you are yet to tell me where we are going or what your intentions are when we get there.”

“We are going to a place. By the river. My intentions are to read and to generally ignore you.”

“You’re cruel,” he said, sarcastically.

“I won’t completely ignore you. I will make polite conversation. I have some manners.”

“Manners are overrated. We should just get straight to all the deepest topics of conversation we can.” Dana ignored his request, seeing it as him just trying to get at her personal life. “Come on. We’re nearly there.” They soon found themselves stood by the river, but Mulder saw no place that they could sit or really do anything, as the area was covered in plants and thistles. “We have to cross the river,” Dana said, turning to face Mulder. “How? There’s no bridge here?” She just laughed at him, and then asked, “You’re not afraid of getting your feet wet, are you Mulder?”

“Of course not. I just thought. Maybe you were.”

“Right,” she said, before pulling off her boots and stuffing her socks in them. She sat on a rock to do this, and she then rolled up her jeans. Mulder did the same, albeit a bit more hesitantly than she did. Dana held her shoes in one hand and began to walk across the river. She stepped from rock to rock, and Mulder followed suit, copying her movements.

The water suddenly got a lot deeper and faster moving, and Mulder wobbled as he tried to adjust to it. He let out a short high-pitched scream, which caused Dana to snort in laughter. He wobbled again, and this time grabbed onto her shoulder to stop himself tipping over. The two eventually made it over the river, which would have taken Dana a third of the time it had, if she had been alone. She considered saying that to Mulder, but stopped herself, considering he was new to this kind of terrain. Mulder put his shoes and socks back on, but she simply walked barefoot down the river for about a hundred yards. Mulder followed eagerly and smiled widely when he saw where she’d stopped.

This well-lit patch of grass was slightly above the river, and had a large oak tree growing in the center of it. Dana laid down her jumper as a sort of picnic blanket, and sat down, crossing her legs. Mulder’s attention, however, was drawn to the rope swing that hung from one of the thicker branches of the oak trees. It was hanging down over the river and looked quite safe. “How’s the swing?” he asked, walking over to see if he could reach it easily. “It’s fine,” said Dana, who was already half-engaged in her book. She looked over the top of her book as Mulder grabbed onto the rope and then jumped, landing on the seat of the swing. He swung out over the river and tipped his feet up so that his head hung close to the river. The swing swung back and forth a few times, and then came to a stop.

Mulder was hanging half over the river and half over the grass now. Scully was paying attention to her book again. He wriggled his legs to try and move the swing closer to the grass so he could jump off. If he jumped off now, he would fall down into the river below. Mulder wasn’t opposed to swimming, but he was opposed to swimming fully clothed with no way of getting dry. He began to kick more furiously now, still not close enough to safely get off. Scully was now fully engrossed in her book.

“Shit,” Mulder muttered, under his breath. “Erm, Scully? Hey.” She looked up from her book, and then folded over the page. “I’m stuck,” he mumbled, looking very bashful.

“You’re stuck?”

“Yes. I can’t get down.” She cackled a little, knowing that she could simply leave him hanging there, flailing. However, kindness got the better of her, and she put her book down and then walked over to him. She grabbed onto the seat of the swing and pulled it close. Mulder noted that she was a lot stronger than he originally anticipated. “So, this wasn’t the display of boyish agility that I hoped it would be,” he said as he hopped down from the swing.

“You’re right. If you really wanted to prove your masculinity, you should have jumped straight into the river.” He laughed at this, and then they both sat down on the grass. Mulder flopped back and laid down, his head among the flowers. “You want to get down to revealing your deepest darkest secrets yet?” he asked, looking at Scully hopefully.

“Absolutely not,” she said, in a mock serious tone, and picked up her book.

“What are you reading?” he asked, although he was already very well aware of what she was reading. She simply angled the cover of the book into his face so that he was forced to read the title. “How are you finding it?” he questioned, hoping to get her talking.

“I like it. I’ve read it twice before, so it’s not really anything new.”

“And you’re not being forced to read it or anything?”

“What? No?”

“So, you’re telling me that you are willingly reading Moby Dick for the third time?”

“Yes. I like it,” she said, firmly.

“That’s fair. I just always thought it was a bit, you know?”

“No, I do not.”

“It’s just a bit shit, isn’t it?”

“Of course not! It’s amazing and provides an excellent insight into…”

“It also has 30-page monologues about whales!”

“So what?”

“Don’t tell me you seriously enjoy those bits?”

“Well they are quite informative.”

“What?”

“But they are also a bit… boring. I think if I’m being honest, I like this book so much because my father used to read it to me when I was little. Now we don’t spend as much time together.”

“Why not?” Mulder asked. Dana answered like it was the most natural thing, not like she was having a conversation with a practical stranger. “He works more. He’s more distant, and he doesn’t really tell us what’s happening to him at work anymore. It feels like he’s not as invested as before. In being my dad, you know?” Mulder nodded softly, his abrasive and critical attitude from a minute ago washed away. “What’s his job?” he asked, slowly pushing further into her world.

“He’s in the military. He works at Fort Parburgh.” Mulder bit his tongue, wanting to say something but knowing that it probably wouldn’t be helpful when she seemed a little more emotionally vulnerable. “I know, you probably think he’s involved in some government conspiracy to cover up little green men running around a military base.”

“Well- I mean, the thing is…”

“Or was that all just to be annoying?”

“No. I’m not like that. Here’s the thing Scully,” he said, turning to face her. “Do you believe in the existence of extra-terrestrials?”

“Well, I would have to say no,” she said, not wanting to flat out say no, in fear of seeming harsh. “The energy alone needed to travel to Earth from the outer reaches of space could not be carried on a spacecraft. It just doesn’t make sense Mulder.” Mulder smirked sadly.

“Are you the only skeptic in town? There seem to be plenty of people willing to bet money around here that they’re hiding something at Parburgh, and I guess I figured you’d be one of them.”

“Why would you say that?”

“I don’t know. Wishful thinking, I suppose.”

“How can you believe in something that there is no scientific evidence for though Mulder? Where does that belief come from?”

“Things cannot always be proven by science. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t true.”

“Everything can be proven by science. You just have to know where to look.” For some reason, this made Mulder beam. “Why are you smiling Mulder?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t talked to a real person in a while.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I haven’t talked to anyone who’s real in a while. So, it’s nice to talk to you.”

“I’ve seen you talking with other people Mulder. Stop being dramatic.”

“I’m not. All the times I talk to people in school or in shops it’s not really talking. I don’t know them. They don’t know me. I’m not really talking; I’m just saying words.”

“Don’t you talk to your mother? About real things?”

“I do. I just think sometimes that maybe she isn’t a real person. Or at least since…” his voice trailed off and his face was painted with layers of hurt. There was that familiar pang of empathy that stung Dana’s insides. She became silent, unsure of what to say. “Don’t worry. I know you know. Everyone knows. It’s not a secret.”

“It’s really none of my business,” she said, looking away.

“Its fine. Go ahead, ask me what you want to.” Dana hesitated, knowing what she wanted to ask but being unsure of whether it was really sensible or not to do so. “Well… are you sure you don’t mind?”

“I’m fine, honestly Scully.”

“My mother said your sister was murdered.”

“Kidnapped. They have no proof she’s dead.” An awkward silence fell between the two of them, and Dana felt ashamed for not knowing, for not questioning. She should be more considerate. People always told her that. “When was that?” Mulder looked down and began to pull the grass out of the ground, ripping up thistles and grass and flowers very slowly and deliberately. “That was three years ago.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realise it was so recent.”

“It’s okay.”

“Is it?”

“No. Not really.”

Then a thick cloud descended upon them, driving any light or joy out of the conversation that may have been there before. They both just there, letting the forest consume them. It was quite peaceful, Dana thought. I wonder if Mulder is going to be okay. How can you ever be okay if something like that happened to you?

Dana was snapped out of her metaphorical internal monologue by the smell of rain over-powering the valley. “I think it’s going to rain. We should head back. It’ll take almost an hour to get back, and I don’t particularly want it to be raining on us as we walk home.” Mulder nodded gently, and the pair stood up.

They crossed the river with more ease and walked back through the forest in relative silence. It appeared that the rain may not fall, until suddenly the rain exploded from the clouds and began to soak the earth. “Shit!” cried Dana, realizing she didn’t have a coat with her.

“Come on,” said Mulder, starting to run. She followed him, their feet splashing in the puddles as they sped through the forest, trees and rocks streaming behind them. Mulder turned to Dana, and grinned. “Why the fuck are you smiling?”

“This is fun,” Mulder replied, completely out of breath.

“If this is what you call fun, then I’m gonna have to stop hanging out with you.”

“Don’t worry, I normally get into much more trouble than this,” he said mysteriously. She had no idea whether he was being serious or not and if so, how she felt about that, so she just ran faster to avoid any more conversation. As they ran, time passed so quickly and yet so slowly. Every moment seemed to drag, and all Dana could think of was her jeans sticking to her legs, yet at the same time they seemed to pass through the forest faster than she ever had before.

When they left the forest, the rain was still heavy, and they didn’t have the cover of the trees to protect them. “Where do you live?” she asked, a little impatiently.

“Stalker,” he retorted.

“Mulder,” she said, sternly.

“Ashmore Street.”

“That’s near my house. Come on.” She started speed-walking, not wanting to draw attention to herself by running. They soon reached the corner of Ashmore Street and Bodleian Street. “Where do you live?” Mulder asked. Scully pointed behind her and said, “On the corner of Bodleian Street.”

“Alright. Well I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Dana replied, unsure what to say.

“Thanks for letting me hang out with you today.”

“It’s fine. People are always telling me I need to be more social.”

“Yeah. People are always saying that.” They smiled at each other and turned away from each other. They walked away from each other, and had Scully looked back she would have seen Mulder looking back at her, grinning.


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so here's another chapter. might be shit, might not

Time is a universal constant. It carries going on at the same speed, and it never stops, jumps ahead, loops back, speeds up, or slows down. Dana Scully was very sure of these facts. She was also sure that they didn’t apply in her own mind sometimes. Time sometimes went so fast in her mind that it felt as if she was watching a highlight reel of what was happening to her. Other times it went so achingly slow that she could have sworn that it stopped all together. Sometimes, she felt removed from time. This was usually when she was alone and reading. She was completely removed from time, totally engrossed in a different time. She had decided long ago that these feelings didn’t mean that time wasn’t as consistent as she thought it was, but that there was something wrong with her. Many people told her this, so she had begun to accept it.

Time went very fast that next week, stopping occasionally for biology lessons, some very good ice cream and for a very intense conversation with her father about the meaning of a certain chapter in Moby Dick. Wednesday appeared as if from nowhere, and Dana awoke, her body tingling with excitement in the way it does when you wake up at Christmas or before you go on holiday. Nevertheless, she still had to get up, get dressed and go off to school as if this was a perfectly normal day. She sat in her lessons, tapping her feet with excitement and fear, her emotions too intense to regulate herself to a tapping pattern. “Dana would you please sit still?” came the voice of her English teacher, cutting through her daydream. She stopped tapping immediately and blushed as the whole class turned to face her. She muttered an apology and the class returned it’s focus to the homework that was being given out.

Instead of feeling upset that she had been shouted at, she felt angry, which was unusual for her. Why did she have to sit still? She wasn’t hurting anyone. Still angry, she stamped out of the English classroom, only stopping to quickly grab her homework. As she turned onto the corridor, she saw Mulder walking towards her from the opposite direction. She slowed down, wondering if he’d stop to talk to her. It didn’t appear he was going to, until at the last minute he stopped and whispered in her ear, “See you at eleven,” before disappearing off down the corridor. Grinning a little, she carried on walking to maths, her excitement for tonight only doubled.

By the time she had to go home, she was practically skipping down the street. She didn’t know why she was so excited – but she did know that doing something wrong was almost intoxicating. “Did you have a good day at school?” her mother asked her, as she walked through the front door with a smile on her face. “No, it was normal,” she said, opening the fridge and helping herself to some orange juice.

“Don’t drink too much of that.”

“I won’t,” she said, pouring herself way more than her mother would want.

“Why are you smiling so much then?”

“I’m just happy,” Dana said, before running up the stairs to her bedroom. She shut her door behind her, put the orange juice down on her desk. Unable to sit still, she got on her bed, lay down, and then sat up again. She put her feet down on the floor, and then lifted them back up. Her emotions were a blur – was she excited or terrified? She couldn’t tell. It was five past four. Why wasn’t time moving quicker?

She tried to read, but for once a different universe dominated her mind. It was not the fictional one contained in the pages of Moby Dick, but the one that was stretching out before her, waiting for her to step in. All she could think of was what might happen that night. It was partly terrifying. She was running away from her house in the middle of the night with a strange _boy_ , sneaking a gun out, cycling miles and miles away from her house and there was a chance she’d get kidnapped. She knew as well as anyone else that her area was a hotspot for kidnapping, especially of girls her age. Those thoughts swirled around, terrifying her.

And she loved it.

Time couldn’t pass quick enough for Dana Scully that evening, as she attempted to distract herself with television, reading, homework, eating and even hanging upside down off her bed, as she’d once heard that could get you high without drugs. She highly doubted that, and her doubts were proven to be correct after an uneventful half an hour of laying on her bed. Her parents noticed her strange behavior over dinner.

“Dana are you okay?” her mum asked, after she had giggled loudly (something very uncharacteristic for her. “I’m fine,” she said. This wasn’t a lie.

“Has something happened?”

“No.” Well, not yet at least.

“You are acting a little strange,” her father added, putting a spoonful of mashed potato in his mouth.

“Am I?” she responded, perfectly aware that she was acting very strange. By the standards of other kids, Dana was acting perfectly normal, but given that she was normally so withdrawn, her parents naturally assumed something was wrong. The matter was eventually dropped, and Dana slid back to her bedroom, waiting impatiently, stating at the clock. How was it only half seven?

Just before eight, Dana heard her mother shout her name up the stairs. She came out of her room and looked down the stairs to see her mother. “There’s someone here to see you. It’s Fox Mulder,” she said. “What?” Dana asked, heavily confused.

“Come down,” her mother said, “He’s at the door.” She then disappeared back into the living room. Dana ran down the stairs, and into the kitchen. “What are you doing here?” she hissed very quietly. He responded a little louder than was acceptable, “Hi, you left this in Chemistry today. Mr. Allen told me to bring it to you.” She looked at him with a lot of confusion, as there had not been a chemistry lesson that day, and Mr. Allen wasn’t even Mulder’s chemistry teacher. Mulder nudged her, and then whispered, “Play along.”

“Oh, thanks,” she said, still very confused. She took the book that he’d handed her. He lowered his voice again, and asked, “Are we still on for tonight?” She nodded and grinned a tiny excited grin that made Mulder feel a little weak in the knees for a reason he could not identify. “Okay, well thanks,” she said, shutting the door. Slowly, she drifted back towards the stairs. Her mother came out of the living room, and asked her, What was that all about?”

“Oh, I left a book in Chemistry. He sits behind me, and I think he lives close to here, so Mr. Allen asked him to bring it.”

“Do you know him?”

“No.” Her mother looked at her with a little suspicion, but then decided to accept what she had said. She then promptly left, going back to watching the news in the living room. Dana climbed the stairs and went into her bedroom. She sat down on her bed, and for the first time looked at the book that Mulder had handed her. It was unfamiliar to her. The book was The Fountains of Paradise, by Arthur C Clarke. She opened the first page and found a small piece of paper in it.

_So, you definitely need something better to read than Moby Dick. My father’s friend wrote this book, and I got a copy of it early (it hasn’t been published yet). I’m not big on books, but I like this one. I’ll see you tonight, Mulder._ (He had considered adding an x on the end, as his mother always did on notes, but decided it would seem too flirtatious.)

She smiled at this, and then placed the book on her bedside table. Then she placed the note in the small drawer in her bedside table. The next three hours passed a lot quicker than she had anticipated. At around half ten, she heard her mother and father walk up the stairs to bed, and by quarter to eleven the house was completely silent. About seven minutes later, Dana snuck down the stairs. She picked her boots and grabbed the bb gun from its place. Silently, she sped back up the stairs, and into her bedroom. She sat on her bed and laced up her boots, and then slung her backpack on, before opening her window.

The tree was relatively easy to climb up and down, with branches coming off the tree all the way round, providing a kind of natural ladder for her to use. Her bike was kept in the garden, so she went around to the back of her house to get her bike. She jumped on and cycled off to the street corner where she’d arranged to meet Mulder. The night was warm, although there was a slight cold breeze. Dana was thankful for the warm jumper she was wearing. She pulled over at the corner to see Mulder already waiting there, his bike dumped on the grass.

“Hey. You’re early,” she said, not getting off her bike.

“You gave me a very persuasive lecture.” She chuckled in response.

“So where is it we’re going?” She already knew the answer to this, but she needed to segue into her next topic of conversation. “The Mission Valley.”

“How long will it take to cycle there?”

“Fifty minutes.”

“Forty, if you can keep up,” she retaliated, before turning her bike around and speeding away down the road.

“Wait for me!” Mulder called, scrambling to put on his backpack. He got on his bike and began cycling after her, pedaling fast to try and keep up with her. Soon, he had caught up and they matched each other’s pace. The wind pushed back his hair and she noted that it made him look a little funny. “What happens if we get kidnapped?” she asked, seeming quite nonchalant about it. Mulder struggled to hear her as the wind blurred out some of her speech. He managed to decipher what she said though. “I don’t know. You brought the gun?”

“Yeah, but it’s a bb gun. You can’t do any serious damage with it. “

“Well hopefully we’ll be able to scare off any kidnappers with it before we have to use it.”

“That’s a shit plan.”

“Anyway, I’ll look after you, so it’ll be fine.” Dana turned, not having expected this statement. He noticed she was looking at him, and he sped up a little, sheepish about what he’d said. She caught up, but they remained in silence. For a while as they pedaled through the town, their way was lit by streetlights. As they got further away from the town center, their route was lit by the lights from houses, but eventually the houses got less and less frequent and they drifted into darkness. They turned on the lights on their bikes, so that the road ahead of them was lit by two feint beams of light that occasionally flickered. The moon provided their only other light source, its light spilling across the fields that surrounded the road that they cycled down.

“Are you afraid?” Dana asked, breaking the silence again.

“Terrified.” Mulder grinned immediately after saying that, and although it didn’t seem to be much to smile about, Scully grinned in response and let out a slight giggle. Both were unsure if it was in fear or excitement. Mulder thought about how out of character it was for her to giggle, They passed by the lake and watched in awe as the moonlight glittered on the waves. “It’s beautiful,” Mulder said. Scully was not at all sure how to respond to this, so she simply nodded and said, “Yeah,” cycling faster to avoid any awkwardness. Mulder was in the mood to talk, so he sped up and said, “You avoiding me Scully?”

“No. It’s just difficult to talk and cycle.”

“Sure,” he laughed, and Dana blushed, embarrassed by the fact that he saw straight through here.

“I just sometimes don’t really know what to say. So, then I say the wrong thing.”

“I don’t care. I say the wrong thing too, remember?” he said.

“But you do it on purpose.”

“Not really. I just say what I’m thinking. People don’t always seem to like that, although they say you should always speak your mind”.

“Same for me. I don’t understand.” She scrunched up her face thinking about the strange social rules of her peers. Mulder giggled a little at the face she was pulling, and then tried to cover it. “What?” she asked, looking at him accusingly. “What? What is it?”

“Your face looks funny when you do that. When you scrunch it up.”

“Hey! That’s mean!” she said, looking slightly pissed off.

“Sorry,” he said, his face softening, “Your face is fine.”

“Whatever.”

“Seriously. Your face is fine. It’s nice.”

“Shut up. That’s a bit creepy to say, you know.”

“How?”

“I barely know you. Who knows? You could be planning to kill me.”

“This would be a very easy way to kill you. No one ever find your body.”

“You’d be a suspect. You came to my house this evening. They’d find the note.”

“You’d have fallen for it completely, if I was trying to kill you.” Dana laughed in response to this. By this point they were cycling much slower than they were before. They could have stopped, and it wouldn’t have made much difference. “Come on,” Dana said, “We need to go faster.” They both sped up and carried on riding in silence.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops took me nearly a month to write this but i promise i haven't forgotten it i just have... low motivation

It was nearly midnight when Mulder suddenly stopped on the road and said, “We’re here.” They had stopped a hundred yards away from a farm, which was almost completely dark, bar one light in the top of the house. “Where do we go now?” Dana asked, looking a little apprehensive. Mulder pointed to a small path off the side of the farmhouse. “Down there.”

“We should ditch our bikes here. The path is too overgrown to take them down.” Mulder nodded in agreement, and they both shoved their bikes in a nearby bush. They tried to be as silent as possible as they crept past the farmhouse, not wanting to awake the people in the house. Dana was unsure if they were on private property, which made her a little worried. “Mulder!” she whispered, “Are we allowed to be here?”

“Sure.” She didn’t feel very convinced by his answer, given the fact that he looked away immediately when she asked the question. “Mulder!” she hissed. “Are we breaking the law?”

“Maybe,” he murmured. “But it’s not a bad law to break.”

“That’s not true.”

“Trespassing is victimless. It doesn’t hurt anyone. If they don’t find out, they wouldn’t even notice.”

“You’re just trying to convince me carry on breaking the law with you.”

“Is it working?”

“A little bit.” Mulder smirked in a way that suddenly made Dana’s legs turn to jelly. I must be more anxious than I realised, she thought to herself. She pinned the sudden light-feeling in her body down to nerves.

Suddenly, there was a noise in a nearby bush, and it sounded as if something was moving through it. “Mulder,” Scully murmured anxiously, pointing to the bush. The rustling got louder, and a twig snapped. Unconsciously, Scully grabbed onto Mulder’s arm and gripped tight. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and her breathing sped up. She could almost hear the scary music building up in her head to the point where the kidnapper would jump out of the bush.

A cat burst through the bush, took one look at Mulder and Scully and ran back off in the direction of the farmhouse. Scully immediately let go of Mulder’s hand and looked a little embarrassed. “Sorry,” she murmured. Mulder noticed the way her breathing was fast and the way her hands were curled in on themselves. “Hey,” he said softly. “Sit down.” They both sat down in the grass. “It’s okay, just breathe slowly.” She breathed in and out slowly in the way she was always told to, and then realised that she was probably ruining the entire night by being like this. “Sorry, sorry,” she said, starting to repeatedly apologise. “You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s okay to be scared,” he said, smiling at her gently. “Do you want to go home?” She shook her head.

“I just need a minute.”

“That’s fine, take as long as you need.” They sat in silence for a while, Mulder wanting to comfort her further but not being sure if it was the right thing, and Scully trying to calm herself. “You’re nice,” she blurted out, “Let’s go.” She stood up and started walking off in the direction they had been walking in. Mulder scurried after her, hoping she was okay.

They walked for another ten minutes, sometimes talking, other times just being comfortable in each other’s silence. “Come up here,” Mulder said, pointing to a small path going through some overgrown bushes. Scully was slightly suspicious, but she walked up the path. A tiny bit of her brain told her that this was some elaborate plan Mulder had devised to kill her. “You could take him. And you have the gun,” a voice in her head reassured her. She felt slightly calmer as she pushed through the bushes. They seemed to be getting thicker and thicker, and just before Scully was about to turn around to complain to Mulder, they burst out into a small clearing. The clearing overlooked the valley from about halfway up the hill. She noticed that they’d been slowly climbing uphill since they ditched the bikes. There was also a large rock in the clearing, which Mulder then dumped his bag on.

“So now what?”

“Now we wait.”

“To see the fireflies.”

“Do you really think we’re going to see any Mulder? What’s the real reason you’ve dragged me out here?”

“I don’t have an ulterior motive, I promise. We’re just here to see some fireflies. And I didn’t drag you.”

“You spent a lot of time persuading me.”

“You wanted to come. You’re just too scared to admit it.” Dana walked towards him accusingly, trying to make herself seem a little taller. “That’s not true. I’m only here because you wanted me to come.” She sounded angry, but there was a playful undertone to her voice. “You’re lying. You love breaking the rules.” Dana scoffed at that, while subconsciously stepping a little closer to Mulder.

“You love making me break the rules. You enjoyed corrupting me a little bit, didn’t you?” Mulder stepped forward, except he did it entirely intentionally. “You like taking a break from the whole good girl act. Just admit it.” The pair were stood incredibly close. Scully was about to respond with a witty retort, but then she realised just how little space there was between them and panicked. She sprung back, going to get something from her backpack. “Whatever, Mulder,” she said, trying to indicate that the game was over. Mulder laughed a little, before pulling a small blanket out of his bag, and laying it out on the grass. “What is this Mulder, a teddy bear’s picnic?”

“Sit somewhere else if you want,” he said, still rummaging through his backpack for something. Scully sat down on the blanket, regardless of her last comment, and opened up Moby Dick to continue reading it, which didn’t surprise Mulder at all.

He grinned upon locating the sunflower seeds in his backpack, and he opened the quickly and stuffed a handful into his mouth. He offered the bag to her. “Seed?” he asked, trying to seem polite. Scully made a noise that couldn’t be translated but that he interpreted as a negative. She was already wound up in her book. He thought it was quite cute really. Quickly, he noticed that he was staring at Scully, not at the surrounding area, where he should have been looking for fireflies. “Hey Scully?” he said, trying to get attention. “Hmm?” she said, not looking up.

“We’re here to find fireflies you know. Not to read.” That made her look up.

“You actually want me to help?”

“I mean, kinda. You’re quite smart.”

“I assumed you invited me along for moral support. But I can help, obviously. Do you have the equipment in your bag?” Mulder nodded, and she stood up to get them.

“Moral support?”

“I mean, it’s quite scary out here.” She paused for a minute, and looked at the dark forest around them, and shuddered. “I figured you didn’t want to alone.”

“Maybe. But also, you’re way smarter than me, and I need help to catch a firefly.”

“If we even see one.”

“We will.” However, by this point, Scully was paying attention to setting up the small jar. It had a lid on each end, which was quite useful. She opened it from the end which had holes poked in it, and then wet a paper towel with water from her flask. The paper towel then went over the opening, before Scully put the lid back on over it. “Your net is a bit ridiculous Mulder,” she commented, sitting back down on the blanket with the jar and net next to her. “What do you mean?”

“It’s bright pink.”

“And?”

“Well, that’s more of a child’s toy than a useable piece of scientific equipment. I mean, it should work fine if we even see those damn fireflies, but still.”

“It was my sister’s.”

“Oh. Mulder. I’m sorry.”

“Why does everyone always do that?”

“Do what?”

“Apologise whenever I bring her up.”

“Well I made fun of the net. So, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. You’re right, it’s a kid’s net. I was just explaining that it was a kids net.”

There was a pause in the conversation.

“Are you okay?”

“About what?” Mulder asked, a little confused.

“About everything. About your sister. I don’t know. You looked sad.”

“I don’t know either. I guess I’d doing okay. I can go through every day and sometimes I’m happy. But is it all better? I don’t think so. I don’t think it will be until I find her.” Scully squashed her instinct reaction to tell Mulder that there was a high chance she was already dead, because she knew that it wouldn’t help. Maybe it would help him. Maybe he needed to let go. “That’s not your decision to make,” she said to herself.

She began searching the skies around them for some sort of firefly, trying to distract herself from the sudden emotional discussion. “What do you want me to say Mulder?”

“What do you mean?”

“How can I be helpful? I don’t know what the right thing to say is.”

“Say what you think. That’s always the right thing to say.”

“Not everyone thinks that though.”

“It’s always the right thing to say to me.” Scully turned back to talk to him. From the second she turned, she was locked into his eyes, their eye contact not breaking as she settled into the blanket. Normally, Scully despised making too much eye contact with anyone, but with Mulder, the usual uncomfortable feeling didn’t run through her body.

She did wonder why it was impossible to stop looking at him so intensely, and how long this was going to go on for. In both their minds, hours had passed, but in reality, it had been just over a second since they made eye contact. Scully couldn’t really look him in the eyes as she spoke, so she tore her eyes away and looked down into her lap. “You know she’s probably dead.”

“I know.”

“I don’t mean to be depressing, but statistically…” Scully began, before Mulder interrupted.

“Statistically it’s very unlikely that a missing person who has been missing for this long will still be alive, and if they are, it is almost impossible that they will be recovered. I know.”

“Then why do you still think she’s alive.”

“Because. This isn’t just a regular missing person’s case. She wasn’t alone in the street or in the playground or playing in the garden. She was in my living room, with me. It wasn’t like any of the stereotypical kidnappings that those statistics are about.”

“You were there when it happened?” Mulder nodded. “I didn’t know that. What happened? I mean only if you’re comfortable telling me. You don’t have to.”

“Will you tell anyone else?”

“No.”

“It’s just that conventional wisdom would contradict what I think happened. I know you’ll think the same thing. But I trust you.” She looked at him when he said that and smiled slightly. She didn’t really remember anyone saying that to her before. _Dana is a very trustworthy student_ had been written on many of her report cards, and she assumed that her parents trusted her as she was usually the one who had to make sure her siblings were okay, even though she was one of the younger ones. But this was different. No one had ever looked her in the eyes and said, “I trust you.” It was so strange to hear, so personal and invasive. She didn’t know how to feel about it. But before she could really think about it, she found herself saying “I trust you too.”

Mulder smiled a little, and an unfamiliar flutter moved in Scully’s stomach. He leaned back fully and looked up at the stars. “I didn’t really remember at first. I woke up early one morning. I was lying on the living room floor, and my mother was waking me up. She was crying. She didn’t know where Samantha had gone. Everyone kept asking me stuff, but I couldn’t remember anything. The last thing I could remember was arguing about what channel we had on TV. She wanted to watch a movie. But beyond that, I couldn’t remember anything. It was like this blank in my memory. The police, and then the FBI were always asking me stuff, but I just couldn’t remember. I think they were about to give up one me, give up on the case, when this crackpot detective suggested that they put me under hypnosis.” Dana scoffed at that. She’d heard many things about hypnosis from her father, and all of them made her see it as a pointless and potentially dangerous practice.

Mulder noticed her reaction, and said, “My parents had the same response at first. They thought it was ridiculous. So, they carried on with conventional methods of detecting for a few weeks. There was still no sign. The one night, I heard my parents talking. My mum wanted to give it a go. She was desperate. My father didn’t want to – he was dead set against it, actually. But they said it was up to my mother, and she said they could.”

“Did anyone ask you what you thought?”

“I was just a stupid twelve-year-old. They didn’t care. But I wanted to anyway. I wanted to find Samantha, and I felt like the truth was trapped in my head.” Mulder paused there, and as he looked up at the moon, Scully noticed that his eyes were glazed over with tears. They sparkled in the moonlight, and if she hadn’t been so hurt by his sadness, she would’ve thought it was beautiful. “So, they put me under hypnosis. Wasn’t anything like the movies. I expected to get all the answers right away, but they actually had to put me under five times. By the end I hadn’t remembered anything that could be classed as “valid evidence” or a “plausible lead”. They discounted everything I said and closed the case. That was it.”

“What did you remember though?” Dana asked. She was caught up, not really thinking about whether hypnosis was an effective phycological tool for uncovering buried memories.

“The first thing I remembered was light. This bright light all around our house. I’d never seen a light that bright before. Then I started to remember knowing that there was something else in the room with me and Samantha. It was after that I started to remember details. Samantha was screaming. She kept shouting for me, for me to help her. But I was rooted to the spot. I couldn’t move. I was like a stick in the mud.” He stopped, looking almost angry.

“That’s a very common response to fear Mulder. You don’t need to feel bad.”

“Thanks. But by the time I managed to move, they were already taking her. I ran to get my father’s gun, but it was stuck in its box. I couldn’t get it out. By the time I did, she was gone. All that was left was the thing that took her.”

“Do you remember who it was?”

“No. But what I do remember is that whatever that thing was, it was not human.” The silence fell again. Dana bit back her initial remark as the pieces suddenly joined together in her head. The kidnapping. The speech about aliens. The strange sweatshirt. The social isolation.

“You think... You think she was abducted by aliens. don't you?” she asked, hesitantly. He nodded.

“After the final hypnosis session, I was certain of it. I read up on alien abductions and it all made sense it really did. What had happened perfectly fitted the profile. I tried telling them. I tried to tell my parents, the police, my friends, anyone who would listen. But they all told me I was crazy, and that I just wanted a way of explaining to my sister.”

“Mulder…” Scully said sympathetically.

“It didn’t bother me. But it bothered my father. I’d gone from the all-American golden boy to the freak. The psycho. The weird kid. He couldn’t have it. My mother was more sympathetic. She didn’t believe me, but she wasn’t mad. So, they started arguing more and more. All the time. Eventually, they decided to divorce. Once it was over, my mother said she couldn’t be there anymore. She couldn’t be anywhere near the memories of my father and my sister, of our family. Then we left. She wanted to go far away. Here we are.”

“Mulder I’m so…” Scully began, before her eyes caught on something. Lights in the distance. Lots of them. Small and glowing. “Mulder! Fireflies!”


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i got inspired to write another chapter, so here it is.

Scully grabbed the jar and then Mulder’s arm and tore off down the slope after the fireflies. Before they left, Mulder grabbed onto the net, as Scully had forgotten it. Mulder felt slightly dizzy after being yanked up so quickly but was just as interested in the fireflies as she was. “Where are they?” he said, a little out of breath. Scully let go of his arm to point to the swarm of lights she could see. He followed her hand into the air, and saw them, hovering about eight foot off the ground. She grabbed him again, not wanting him to slow down, but this time she interlocked her fingers with his, hoping that this would make him easier to pull. It only made Mulder’s heart beat faster as they ran through the grass.

As they approached them, Mulder grew skeptical. He’d seen fireflies before, and these seemed a little off. They were too golden, too long. The pair slowed just beneath them. “Mulder?” Scully said a little nervously. “Yeah?”

“These don’t really look like fireflies to me.”

“That’s just what I was thinking…”

“I mean there are a lot of other bugs that glow.”

“Name one that lives in Montana.”

In silence, they stared up at the swarm. Mulder was unsure if he could call it a sparkle anymore, given that these definitely weren’t fireflies. “We should capture some, take a closer look,” Scully said absently, still staring at the insects above. “The net won’t reach that high. We’ll need a way off getting up to them.” They both thought for a minute and reached the same conclusion. “We could…” Mulder began, unsure if he wanted to finish that sentence. “No Mulder. Not a chance.”

Five minutes later, and Scully was frantically waving the net around as Mulder wobbled under her weight. “Your shoulders are incredibly bony. Do you eat enough?”

“My diet is excellent. Have you got any yet?”

“No. Surprisingly I don’t have much experience catching mystery bugs with a crab net while sitting on someone’s shoulders at 2 o’clock in the morning.”

“Hurry up. We’re not exactly being discreet here.”

“Got one! Pass me the jar.” Mulder lifted the jar up, moving his hand up her leg, causing her to wobble dangerously. Scully took the jar and lowered the net down. Nervous about having to do something that required two hands at this height, she clamped her legs around Mulder very tightly. “You know in another situation I would be very flattered to get that response from you,” he said, unsure if he was pushing it a bit. He took from the fact that she kicked him in the stomach that he was pushing it.

“Try not to be disgusting while I’m risking my neck to get you an A.”

“Sorry,” he said, genuine, although his tone was a little exaggerated. Scully then plucked the bug from the net, careful not to squash the insect. Mulder had previously loosed the lid for her, so she only had to tap it to open it. Unfortunately, she was a little enthusiastic and the lid fell to the ground. “Shit,” she muttered. She shoved the insect into the jar and used her palm as a temporary lid. “Could you get that for me?” she asked, trying to seem serious as if the entire situation wasn’t hilarious.

“Sure. Hold on tight,” he said, making sure to tighten his grip on her legs. She held the net in her mouth, and the jar in one hand. She then wrapped her arms around his head and gripped his hair very tightly with her free hand. She noted to herself that it was very soft, but before she could think about it, she suddenly found herself being lurched forward as Mulder bent down to get the lid. She gripped even tighter, not wanting to fall. She saw Mulder’s hand grab onto the lid, and then felt herself nearly falling off his shoulders as he stood back up. Somehow, she, the jar, the net and the insect were all still on his shoulders. “You good?” Mulder asked.

“Yeah. We should get some more of these bugs. Just to be on the safe side.” Mulder groaned.

“This isn’t very comfortable for me you know?”

“Whatever Mulder.”

By the time Scully had collected the fourth mystery insect, Mulder’s shoulders were in huge amounts of pain. “Are you done now?” he asked.

“What was that?”

“That was me asking you if you were done yet.”

“Not that, idiot, that!” And as she said this Scully pointed into the near distance, and they both looked and saw hundreds of soldiers carrying strange scientific equipment running in their direction. They were yelling between each other, and they didn’t seem to be wasting any time. “Shit!” Mulder yelled, and bent down to allow Scully to climb off his shoulders. Just before she did this, her eyes focused in on a familiar face in the crowd of soldiers. Mulder looked where she was looking, and he saw what she saw. He turned to her to question it, but before he could, she grabbed his arm and sprinted off as fast as she could.

They pelted through the long grass, barely stopping to collect their backpacks, and shoving their stuff into them as they ran back towards where they’d dumped their bikes. As they grabbed their bikes, Scully’s hand grazed on a thorn, and she swore under her breath. Mulder wanted to stop and help her, but the fear coursing through his body compelled him to hiss “Hurry up!” and then cycle off, away from the oncoming danger. Scully followed him, and they sped along the road for what seemed like mere seconds when Mulder braked and turned off the road, signaling for Scully to come with him. She rolled her eyes, but followed him, terrified of getting caught.

Surprisingly, there was space to dump the bikes and to stand inside the bush. “How did you know we could hide here?” Scully whispered.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Just tell me.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Why not?”

“It’s gross.”

“I don’t care.”

“No.”

“Come on, just tell me.”

“I took a piss in here once, okay?” Mulder said, cracking. Scully pulled a face that could only be described as disgust. “That is revolting! What is it with boys and pissing anywhere they want to?”

“Could you keep your voice down? We’re trying to hide from the army here in case you’d forgotten.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do. I know to be quiet on my own.” Mulder raised an eyebrow at this, and at that Scully tried to move away from him, but found there was no space to do this, so she settled for turning her back on him. They stood in angry silence for a minute or two, before Mulder remembered Scully’s cut. “Hey,” he said softly, “Is your hand alright?” She turned around. “It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Don’t worry.” Mulder remembered the way she winced, so he pulled a face at her. “Really?” She didn’t respond. “Can I?” he said, gesturing to her hand. She nodded, not seeming to care. His fingers slipped around hers and raised her hand up to see it. The cut didn’t seem that deep, but it was large enough for a significant amount of blood to be drawn. Mulder hissed in response, seeing that she was hurt. “You need a plaster,” he murmured, softly rubbing his fingers along her palm to try and comfort her. “It’s fine,” she insisted, but Mulder was already pulling a plaster out of his bag pocket. He fumbled with the plaster a little, not able to pick off the back. “Give it to me,” said Scully, mirroring his softer tone. She stuck the plaster on with ease and experience, smiling a little at Mulder’s inability. Mulder smoothed it down after she’d finished, wanting to be helpful in some sort of way.

Then out of nowhere, he lifted her hand up and softly kissed her plaster carefully. He then put her hand down by her side and for a moment the softness of the kiss seemed to linger in the air. Then, almost simultaneously, they both realised what had happened and moved away from each other as much as they could. The silence became uncomfortable and then need to fill it became immediate. Mulder scrambled to think of the first topic that came to mind. “That was your dad,” he stated, as if it was a matter of fact. “What?” Dana responded, her mood shifting to anger very quickly. Mulder felt guilty but had already dug himself a hole. “Erm, that looked like your dad. With the soldiers.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I saw you looking at him.”

“I was looking at someone who looked like my father. But it wasn’t him.”

“Scully…” he began, before he was cut off.

“And besides, how do you know what my father looks like?”

“He answered the door to me when I came round earlier. And didn’t you say he works at the base?”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. My father was at home tonight.”

“How do you know? We’ve been out for hours, and in a car, he could have got their much faster than us. A few cars passed us on the way.”

“Yes, but my father would have told me if he was going to work tonight. He always does if he’s working at night, which he hardly ever does.”

“Its not about that. You just don’t want to admit that your father could be participating in something like that. Just accept it.”

“Something like what? We have no idea what those soldiers were doing?”

“Oh, come on! You know what you saw. Those soldiers, with all that equipment – they were looking to catch something. To catch those!” Mulder said, pointing to the jar of insects.

“You think all those soldiers were out looking for fireflies?”

“They’re not fireflies. You know that as well as I do.” Before Scully could respond, a rumbling noise started moving closer and closer. The pair peered out of the bush and saw five or six large military vehicles rolling past and speeds that they probably shouldn’t be going at. “It’s the middle of the night Scully. Why the hell would all those trucks be going past if there wasn’t something going on?” Scully didn’t answer. “Why are you so adamant to believe exactly what they want you to?” he asked, pushing, wanting a response.

With that remark, she glared at him coldly, and then began fumbling to get her backpack on. As soon as she did, she was pushing her bike onto the road, ignoring Mulder’s questions about what she was doing. She was done with him for that night. “What the fuck am I doing?” she thought to herself as she pedaled off. “It’s the middle of the night. On a school night. And I’m off somewhere. I don’t even know where I am. I’m with a boy I don’t know, and my parents have no idea where I am.” The more she thought about it the more she pushed the bike harder and harder up the hill, letting all the emotions out on the pedals. Scully ignored the outline of Mulder trying to catch up with her out of the corner of her eye and frankly she couldn’t give a shit.

Mulder watched her grunt in frustration as the hill got particularly steep. His mind flicked to a few hours before when they’d come down this hill, speeding even though they were pressing on their breaks hard. He remembered the sound of laughter as he showed off and took his hands of the handlebars for a few seconds. It really wasn’t that big of a deal, but it was the “I’m not scared. Are you?” of teenage friendships that always made things seem like a big deal. He looked ahead, seeing her rush away from him now. It stung in is chest, with the sting that had seemed to haunt his life. Ever since. Anyway. He forced the thoughts away and concentrated on trying to cycle fast enough to keep up with Scully.

As they came into the town, with Mulder just a couple yards behind Scully now, everything seemed dead. There was barely a single light turned on, and there were no cars, no people, no anything. It was so eerily beautiful. Despite hating her life here, Scully found the town to be beautiful. It objectively was, with rivers and lakes and mountains surrounding it, making you feel protected from the rest of the world. But wrapped up in the empty houses and hidden places and everyday conversations was a kind of beauty she saw that wasn’t regularly photographed. Dana internally groaned at the cheesiness of what she was thinking, wishing her life didn’t sometimes read like a trashy novel.

The pair passed the place they’d met at, and Scully got off her bike and began to push it home. “Hey,” came a voice from behind her. “Mulder go home!” Scully muttered frustratedly, continuing to push her bike forwards, not looking back. “Scully,” he said. She turned back to see him putting the puppy eyes on her, and despite the anger she still felt the squishy feeling in her legs. “What?”

“Are you still angry at me?”

“Yes. Now go away.”

“Can I make it up to you?”

“No,” came Scully’s answer very quickly, and she stormed off. Damn, she thought, remembering the bugs she’d taken into her bag. She turned back, pulling the jar from the backpack. “Take this. Make sure the lid with holes in is facing upwards so they can breathe. If they die, then I will come and steal your bike wheels.” Mulder took the jar and smirked.

“Steal my bike wheels?” Scully looked a little embarrassed. “Is that a euphemism?”

“No! God, boys are disgusting.”

“You’re right. We’re gross. Do you want me to walk you home to prove you have some merits?”

“My house is less than 300 yards from here Mulder. I’ll be fine. You can watch me like a creepy guy if you want.”

“Nah, I’m good.” Scully scoffed.

“Whatever. Make sure the bugs don’t die and meet me under the big tree tomorrow before school. Try to be early. Or at least on time.”

“They’ll be fine Scully. I can take care of your bugs.” Scully smiled a little through her frown and walked off, pushing her bike along with her. Just before she went into her garden to stow her bike away, she looked back to see Mulder peaking over his shoulder to check on her. Boys really were weird, especially ones called Fox Mulder, she thought as she silently put her bike up against the fence.

It was pretty hard climbing the tree when completely exhausted and carrying a backpack full of stuff. “I’m never doing this again,” Dana thought as she hauled herself through the window. All her instincts told her to collapse onto her bed, but she remembered the gun and her boots, so very reluctantly, she pulled the gun out of her bag, pulled the boots off and crept downstairs silently. She replaced them, and then went to get herself a glass of water to create a plausible reason to be downstairs in the middle of the night should either of her parents wake up. Fortunately, no one seemed to have woken up by her trip downstairs, as Dana’s eyes flitted around the landing to see if anyone’s lights were on. Everything seemed fine until she noticed her parent’s door was open a crack, which was unusual as she knew they both liked to have it shut properly.

The memory of the man who looked so much like her father running across the valley a couple of hours ago flashed in Dana’s mind. Her father wouldn’t do that. Sneak out in the night without telling anyone. But what if? The times the car would have moved from the position it was in the night before. The way her father would avoid questions about work. The deflection and things that were clearly lies that everyone brushed off. The silent arguments that only Dana noticed. The locked cabinet in her father’s desk. Dana didn’t even know what her father’s job was.

“He works at the fort,” she’d say when anyone asked, and they’d nod understandingly and not ask any more questions. Dana wanted more than anything to trust her father. Of course, she did. He was not a liar. Yet as she though this she crept towards her parent’s bedroom and peered around it. She saw both her father and her mother fast asleep in bed. She ran as fast as she could into her room, then into her pyjamas and then under her covers as fast as she could. Why hadn’t I trusted him? Why hadn’t I trusted him? Why hadn’t I trusted him?

The question flung itself around her mind, refusing to leave. It was all she could think of. It kept her awake, and she needed to talk about it. There was only one person she could ask.

Scully breathed a sigh of relief as she saw Mulder walking towards her the next morning at school, knowing what she needed to say. He approached. “Mulder, I need…” she began

“No time. You have to see this. I promise it’s not my fault. I did everything right,” he said. He pulled a small zip lock bag containing one of the insects out of his bag and held it up between the two of them. “They’re dead.”


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, i wrote another chapter. I'm trying to write more but i am a mess

“For fucks sake!” Scully exclaimed. “You killed them! After I expressly told you not to kill them! It’s not that hard to keep a few bugs alive for six hours!” She slumped down at the base of the tree and put her head in her hands. “I didn’t kill them. I swear to you I did everything you told me to.” Scully looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. Mulder sat down next to her and put his hand on her shoulder. Their eyes met. “Scully, do you really think I’d let them die when I was trying so hard to get you to forgive me?” He was so sincere Scully had to believe him.

“Did you keep the jar how you had it last night? In the same position?” she asked. Mulder nodded.

“I figured you’d want to come see if I did it right. But I promise I did what you told me to.”

“It’s okay Mulder, I believe you.” He glowed in response, and Scully bit her lip to stop herself from giggling. “Shit. What’s happening to me?” she thought. The bell rang, and the pair bounced apart. “So… do you mind if I come over tonight? To your house? Just to see your bugs. This isn’t social. Sorry.”

“It’s fine, idiot. You can come over. You want to meet here after class?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you.” Scully smiled, and felt awkward. Did she hug him? Did she want to? Well it didn’t matter, she wasn’t supposed to, so she quickly patted his arm, laughed awkwardly and then scampered off. Mulder sighed, staring after her. “She must really hate me.”

As was entirely expected, the day passed without event, and all either of them was thinking about seeing the other later, not that they could admit to each other. Or even themselves. Scully noticed Mulder stood by the tree as she exited the main school building. She looked confused, scrunched up her face and then checked her watch. Strange. She wasn’t late. She walked over, looking confrontational. “You’re early.”

“Yes.”

“As in not late.”

“I can be on time.”

“Only when you want to be.”

“Maybe I wanted to be on time for you.” Scully internally grinned at that, but only smiled awkwardly in real life, making Mulder regret what he said. “Anyway. Let’s go,” he said, quickly walking off in the direction of his house. Scully followed, and the pair walked in silence. They’d been walking for about ten minutes when Scully unexpectedly leapt from the pavement to hide behind a tree. Mulder stopped and looked very confused. “Mulder!” Scully hissed, signaling for him to come over to where she was. Very aware that this was very strange, he ran over to where Scully was hiding. “What are you doing?” he asked. Scully immediately shushed him, and then pointed across the street.

“That’s my brother,” she said, and Mulder looked to where she was pointing. A boy who looked like an unbearable stereotypical jock was walking surrounded by about seven other people. “Why are we hiding though?” Mulder asked, still very confused.

“He’s kinda protective of me.”

“Oh, so he’s a twat.”

“No. He just cares.”

“Okay… sorry," Mulder said in mock defence.

“You know if you want me to forgive you, calling my brother a twat isn’t the best way to do it.”

“I am really sorry,” Mulder said, seeming genuine, afraid that he’d hurt her.

“Hey. I’m just kidding. He can be a bit annoying sometimes. Maybe a lot of the time.”

“I probably would have become him you know,” Mulder said as they came out from behind the tree and began walking.

"What do you mean?"

"I would've become like your brother."

"How?"

"Well he's sort Mr. Popular-Football guy, right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

“I was on track for all of that. I played baseball and basketball. I was on the swim team. I had a bunch of friends. And I liked it. Maybe my parents pushed me into it a bit, but I liked it. I was horrible. Sometimes I wonder if all this stuff with my sister hadn’t happened. Would I still be that person? And does that make me a bad person? I’m just a bad person with trauma.” They were silent.

“You’re not a bad person Mulder. You can’t be. There’s no such thing as being bad underneath it. You’re not born good or bad. Things happen, and they change that. It’s happened now, it’s changed you. Even if you found your sister tomorrow, do you think you’d go back to being that person?”

“No. I can’t go back, knowing what I know.”

“See. Even if it is stupid, it’s a part of you. You’re not going to go back to being like that,” Scully said, motioning back to her brother. “Not that it would be bad if you did.”

“It would be. Guys like that. They hate anyone who’s different. It feels okay to hate anyone who’s different when you’re not different. It scares me.” They carried on walking, not really saying anything. “I’d probably hate you. That would be bad.” Dana smiled a little.

“Maybe. You’re a lot of trouble,” she said sarcastically.

“Yeah but I’m fun trouble. You kinda like it.”

“Shut up.”

Scully walked ahead a little in mock anger. “Hey,” said Mulder, grabbing her hand, “Wrong way.” She noticed that she’d been walking in the wrong direction, towards her house. Mulder quickly let go of her hand, not wanting to seem weird. If Scully had thought about it, she would have recognised the grumbly little feeling inside her was disappointment.

It was one of the final sunny days of the year – she could tell. It was so nice, but it felt bittersweet. She could tell it was coming to an end soon. She tied her jumper around her waist and tried to take in the sun. “We’re here,” said Mulder, walking towards a medium sized house. It was one story high, and had a small attic sticking up out of the top of the otherwise flat roof. The exterior walls had brown-ish wooden planks going along them, and there was a small car parked outside. It looked very normal, which seemed strange to Scully, as she got the impression, he’d been quite rich when he had lived in Rhode Island. The small voice of social conditioning spoke in her mind, telling her not to mention it.

Mulder put his key in the lock and opened the door. He stood back to allow Scully to walk in first. She stepped in, finding it quite sweet that he’d held the door for her. After he shut the door behind them, he wondered if he should offer her a drink or some food. “Can I see the bugs?” she asked, before he had a chance to do so, and he was frankly relieved because he had no idea how to be a good host. Dana slipped her shoes off and put her backpack in her hand. “Yeah, this way,” Mulder replied, and started walking down the hall. They walked through the kitchen, and Mulder opened a small door in the back of it. It opened up to a small staircase, that has quite cramped and dusty, and the pair squeezed up through the staircase, which was clearly only made for one.

It came out into the attic, and Scully was reasonably surprised by the room. The walls were painted dark blue, but they were mostly covered by various posters and photos and newspaper clippings. Although she knew that most people would say that this was the bedroom of a crazy person, she found it quite cool. It was kinda messy, although clearly some attempt to clear all the dirty clothes into one corner of the room had been made earlier that morning. The bed was half made – not to the neat standard that Dana had always been forced to make hers to, but the pillows were in place and the blankets were laid flat across the bed.

“I like your room,” she said, immediately trying not to giggle at a slightly dubious magazine poking out from under the bed. “Thanks,” Mulder said, blushing a little as he noticed what she was looking at. “The bugs are over there,” he said, pointing to the window ledge. Scully’s face immediately switched from jokey to business. The container seemed to have been stored correctly – it was exactly how she would have done it. Yet at the bottom were four seemingly dead insects.

“Are you sure they’re dead?” she asked, lifting the container up to get a closer look.

“Well, they’re not moving, so I just assumed.”

“Well we should see if they are. We should see if we can… resuscitate them.” She tried to seem confident in what she was saying, but she was mostly taking what she was saying from various novels she’d read. Mulder seemed to be effectively convinced by what they were saying, because he looked at her seriously, and said, “What do you need?”

After around twenty minutes of scavenging around Mulder’s house, they had gathered various dishes and liquids and candles from around the house. Scully was still riding on the scientific knowledge from books she hoped was true. She picked up an insect from the jar with a pair of tweezers they’d found in Mulder’s bathroom. Over the next half an hour they heated them up, cooled them down, put them in water, took them outside, placed food near them and immersed them in darkness, amongst other things Scully could think of from her albeit amateur scientific perspective. The insects stayed exactly the same. No movement, no response, no nothing. Mulder had located an anatomical sketch of a firefly in a large book about insects, and they compared the insect under a magnifying glass to this sketch.

“They’re definitely not fireflies,” said Mulder, after they’d been gazing at the two things before them for a while. “We don’t know that,” Scully replied, still immersed in looking at the insect and the sketch, “They could be some sort of mutation. Or perhaps a different kind of nocturnal bioluminescent insect.” Mulder looked skeptical. “I’ve never seen anything like them. Have you?” Despite her overly scientific opinions, Scully couldn’t lie about this. “No. But I know one thing for sure. They’re definitely dead.” Mulder laughed, pulled a face and then said, “I could’ve told you that an hour ago.” Scully pulled a face in response, and said, “I know, but we had to be sure. It’s the right thing to do, scientifically.”

“Do you want to go get some cookies?” Mulder asked, trying to change the topic to something he was more comfortable with. “Sure,” said Scully, who had a sweet tooth and was happy to see Mulder eat something other than sunflower seeds. They squeezed back down into the kitchen, and Mulder pulled a pack of chocolate chip cookies out of the cupboard. He sat on the counter, and even though it was something Scully had been expressly forbidden from ever doing, she followed suit and sat on the counter next to him. Mulder tore open the pack and offered her one before taking one himself. She smiled, quite liking the fact that he was polite.

“So,” Mulder said, leaning closer to her, “Are you sure those insects are dead?” He meant it as a joke, but Sully, who was always riddled with self-doubt, sat and thought about it for a moment, while chewing on the cookie. “Well there is one way to make sure?” she said.

“Which is?”

“We could try and kill one.”

Although Mulder was already bored of the insects at this point and was more interested in just talking to Scully, he obliged and followed her upstairs. “Can I use some of your books?” she asked. He nodded, and she immediately pulled three books off his shelf. One thin Ladybird book, a small paperback and then a thick hardpack. She picked up one of the insects with the tweezers and lay it on the only open surface in Mulder’s room (on top of his bookshelf). She took a deep breath, because although she was mostly convinced the insects were dead, she still felt guilty. Nevertheless, she lifted the Ladybird book up and smacked the insect. It was not hard enough to kill an insect of that size, so she hoped that the small hit would awaken the insect if it was still alive. It didn’t move. It still didn’t move when she hit it with the paperback. Finally, she gave it a blow with the hardback book, and upon impact heard a crunch between the insect, the book and the shelf. Scully lifted up the book expecting to see the familiar smudge of insect blood spread across the desk, but instead, the bug had almost cracked open, leaving the inside exposed.

The pair both peered at the insect closely, the sides of their faces both brushing against each other. They couldn’t make much out, but it was certainly very strange. Their seemed to be thin grey strands and flat bits of green… something. Scully grabbed the magnifying glass and held it above the insect. They looked closer, and then Mulder murmured, “It almost looks… mechanical.” Scully was about to respond with a biting comment about “how could anything this small be mechanical?” when her watch beeped. She looked at it. 17:15. “Shit!” she yelled and grabbed her backpack.

“What is it?”

“Family dinner with the priest at half five! It’s in fifteen minutes. I need to go.”

“I’ll walk with you,” said Mulder, putting his shoes on as she did.

“You don’t need to Mulder.”

“I want to. It’s fine. I’ve got nothing better to do anyway.”

“Fine then,” said Scully, sounding frustrated but smiling a little. It turns out it was nice when someone wanted to be with you. The pair half jogged half walked back towards her house, and as they did, they were discussing the insect.

“It is impossible for something that small to be mechanical.”

“I know it’s impossible, but I know what I saw. So, do you.”

“We don’t know what we saw. The human brain is very prone to suggestion.”

“Well what do we do then? Because you know that’s not how a bug is supposed to look on the inside.”

“I know that. What we need to do is take it into school. The science lab has a microscope in it. We can use it to get a better look at it.”

“That’s a good idea,” Mulder said, causing Scully to blush a little, “We should do it tomorrow after school.”

“Okay,” she said, stopping as they were close to her house, “Thanks for walking with me.”

“It’s fine.” They both stood there, motionless. “Aren’t you gonna go in?”

“I don’t want to. It’ll be a stupid dinner, and everyone will lie at least ten times. Stupid priest. Stupid dinner.” Mulder chuckled.

“Aren’t you supposed to be like, a good Catholic girl?” Scully lightly punched his arm for that.

“Take that back! I am not a good Catholic girl. That makes me sound either very annoying or like I have a lot of sex. And I am neither.”

“I’m sorry. I was joking anyway.”

“It’s fine, I guessed. Ugh, they’re gonna make me wear some stupid dress probably. I hate dresses. Well, I like how they look, but they’re just so uncomfortable.”

“I honestly can’t imagine you in a dress. Will you let me see?”

“How?”

“I’ll stand here, you can just show me once you’re done.”

“Fine. I need to go now, before I get yelled at.” And with that, she ran off towards her house, trying to make it seem like she was trying to get there as fast as she could. She walked into the kitchen, where she immediately ran into her father. “Dana, you’re late. For God’s sake can’t you be on time? I wish we could trust you.” The word trust hit Scully in the chest, and she remembered all the things. Mulder laying on the ground, telling her he trusted her. “You trust me, right?” was what Mulder said as he hoisted her onto his shoulders for her to catch the insects. Why hadn’t she trusted her father? Why hadn’t she trusted him?

“Well don’t just stand there! Go get ready!” her father said, snapping her out of her daydream. Dana quickly scurried out of the kitchen, kicking off her shoes and putting them alongside everyone else’s inside the hall. Her mother hurried in. “Dana where have you been?” she asked, but before Dana could reply, her mother continued. “It doesn’t matter. You’re lucky the priest is running late. Now I’ve put your Easter dress out on your bed for you to wear. Please go and put it on.”

Dana internally groaned as she hurried up the stairs. Her Easter dress was aesthetically fine. It was a soft yellow color that fit her well on the top and flared out at the waist and the hem hit at her knee. However, it was made of an awful scratchy plastic material that made Dana recoil at the very thought of it. She walked into her room, and found the dress, a pair of white tights and some black Mary Jane’s laid out on the bed. She walked over to her window to close the curtains. She saw Fox Mulder sat on someone’s front garden wall across the street, and when they made eye contact, he grinned up at her. She smiled back, before closing her curtains and quickly taking off her baggy button up shirt, jeans and jumper. The colourful odd socks she was wearing were her favourite pair, and she was a little disappointed to have to replace them with the plain white tights. She quickly put the dress, tights and shoes on, and tried to ignore the awful feeling of the tights and the dress simultaneously digging in at her waist. Her fingernail snagged on her tights as she put the Mary Jane’s on, and she internally cringed at the awful feeling.

Dana then let her hair down from its messy ponytail and quickly brushed through it, knowing that it would make no difference to make it look neater. She tucked her hair behind her ears and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked nice but felt awful inside. Remembering Mulder, she opened the curtains and then the window. Mulder looked her up and down and smiled. She gave a small twirl, allowing the dress to flare out properly. Mulder walked up to her house and stood beneath her window. “You look pretty,” he said, which lead to Dana blushing properly.

“Thanks. You’re sweet.”

“You don’t look very comfortable though.”

“I’m not,” she said, immediately dropping the girl demeanor, “This fabric is so fucking uncomfortable.” She then saw the priest walking down the street. “I should probably go now,” she said, gesturing to the priest. “Yeah, you don’t want to be late for your very important dinner. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you,” she said, before smiling and rushing out of her room.

Mulder found himself looking up at her window, smiling so much it hurt his cheeks. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath, “I’ve got a crush on Dana Scully.” He stood there, thinking, when he realised the priest was approaching, and not wanting to have any sort of interaction with him, Mulder hurried away.

Dana stood at the top of the stairs, still glowing inside from the complement. No one had ever called her pretty before. She began walking down the stairs when she noticed Bill was walking up them too. “What the hell are you doing hanging out with Fox Mulder?” he asked, stopping her halfway down the stairs. “What?” Dana asked, shocked and very confused by what he was saying.

“Don’t act innocent. I saw you walking home with him after school today?”

“Shit.”

“Were you with him today? Is that why you were late?”

“Erm… yeah, kinda.”

“But you told mum yesterday that you didn’t know him.” It wasn’t a question, but Dana knew it was an accusation. “Listen Bill, it’s complicated. But it’s not anything weird, don’t worry.” She was mainly trying to quell any fears that they were dating, which they weren’t. He was barely her friend. “Good. Because he’s a fucking freak. I don’t want him influencing you. You’re weird enough anyway.” Dana looked down, not knowing what to say. “Tell me you’ll stay away from him.”

“What?”

“You have to stay away from him. You’re not allowed to see him.”

“You can’t tell me to do that.”

“I can. Or I’ll tell Mum you lied to her.” And with that, Bill stormed downstairs and into the dining room, leaving Dana on the stairs, blinking back tears. She tried not to cry. She couldn’t.

Her mother appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “Dana, come on. The priest is here. And couldn’t you have brushed your hair. You look a mess.” Her mother walked into the dining room, and Dana followed, trying very hard to stop crying.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter, surprisingly. This is getting more and more Hurt/Comfort, which is just a reflection of my mental state. Anyway, please enjoy the little Irresisitble refrence in here. Gotta love that episode.

Scully sat at lunch the next day, remembering the previous day. On the one hand the memories of the scientific investigation and getting called pretty wanted to dominate her mind, but instead ones of the interaction with her brother and mum before dinner were unable to leave her mind. She thought she was doing well at pulling a neutral face and eating her sandwich, but she was in fact staring into space and holding her sandwich about an inch away from her face.

As Mulder walked across the lunchroom, he noticed Scully looking like that and decided to go and talk to her. They never ate lunch together, as they both elected to sit alone and think, but today he decided to sit with her. She was all he’d be thinking about anyway. So, he walked over, trying to seem confident, but instead feeling a little self-conscious about his tatted jeans and baggy shirt. “Hey,” he said, not confident enough to sit down yet, “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well you were just sort of sat there staring at your food.”

“Oh. I was just thinking, doesn’t matter.” Mulder raised his eyebrow skeptically, and then proceeded to ask, “Can I sit here?” Scully nodded, and he sat opposite her, putting his tray of cafeteria food down on the table. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. Do you still want to meet after to school to look at the insect?”

“Yes. You don’t look fine.”

“What does that mean?”

“You were just pulling a sad face is all. I’m not trying to accuse you of anything, I just want to check you’re okay.” Scully’s face softened into a smile at Mulder’s slightly worried face.

“I got into some trouble with my family last night, but it’s nothing.”

“What happened?”

“It’s nothing, okay Mulder?”

“Alright. But I’m here if you want to talk.” They sat in silence, staring at each other.

“It’s just. Well Bill saw us walking to your house from school.”

“Oh.”

“And he got… upset.”

“What do you mean?”

“When my Mum asked me if I knew you, after you came over, I told her I didn’t. She’s not exactly approving of you, or your family. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I know exactly the bring home to your family type. What about it?”

“Well Bill said that if I don’t stop hanging out with you, he’ll tell Mum that I lied. And they're Catholics they’re really heavy on the not lying thing.” Mulder’s hand gripped the table in anger, and he muttered, “That son of a bitch.” He slid his hand across the table and softly rubbed hers in comfort, which seemed entirely natural. “Misogynist prick.” Although the mood was low, Scully felt a warm glow in her stomach at the sudden feminism. It was rare, and especially rare coming from boys. “It’s not that bad, he’s just protective,” Dana tried to reason, even though she agreed with him.

Mulder raised his eyebrow. “He doesn’t own you. And now he’s blackmailing you. I could hit him,” he said, his eyes focusing in on Bill Scully walking across the cafeteria. “Crap,” Mulder muttered, ducking under the table to avoid detection. A moment later, after Bill was gone, Scully lightly kicked Mulder under the table. He pushed himself back onto the bench and resumed eating. “You can’t hit him.”

“Why not?”

“Well firstly, then you’d get in a fight and I don’t think you’d win. And if you hit him for me then you’re just as bad as him.”

“Fine. I won’t hit him. I’ll just think a lot about how I really want to.”

“Whatever helps you cope.”

“So… are you gonna stop hanging out with me?” Mulder asked, seeming a little nervous. And he was. Scully was his only friend, the only one he trusted. “What? No. I’ll just be more discreet about it.”

“Hiding behind a tree wasn’t discreet?”

“More discreet, I said. Which is why you need to like…”

“Fuck off?”

“Yeah. It’s not that I don’t want to it’s just that, you know.”

“He is blackmailing you.”

“It’s not that bad. Anyway, go away,” she said, smiling through the harsh words.

“Whatever you say,” Mulder replied, gathering his stuff. He softly rubbed Dana’s wrist just before picking up his tray of food and leaving. The touch could have been entirely platonic, just him trying to comfort her, Scully reasoned. Of course, it was, he just wants to make me feel better, she said to herself. It’s nothing more. And although the decision sat well with Dana trying to be rational, there was a small flare of disappointment at the decision she’d come to. Not that she could recognise it as anything more than just general distaste for her life.

Mulder was absolutely seething. He’d tried to seem calm in front of Scully, but he was pissed. Bill had seemed like a twat for simply reminding him of the way he used to be, but now with him being supposedly “protective” of Scully, Mulder had found a good reason to hate Bill. The more he churned the conversation he’d had with Scully over in his head, the angrier he got, so he tried to distract himself. Meeting Dana after school to dissect that thing he had in a small zip lock bag in his jacket pocket. He decided to confirm that he would be meeting Scully after school. He pulled a notebook out of his backpack and tore a tiny section of paper out of the back page. With a pen he found in his pocket he wrote out:

_Are we still on to do a little investigating after school? Mulder x_

This time he had the confidence to add a little kiss, mainly because of the previous night’s revelation. He wanted Scully to notice him a little more, and perhaps the slightly flirtatious tone of the note would make her smile. He’d finished eating by this point, so his hands were free as he walked past the table Scully was sat at and quickly placed the note down in front of her, not stopping or looking. Scully grinned as she saw that it was Mulder who had dropped the note on her table, enjoying the secrecy of their friendship. It excited her.

She quickly skimmed over the note and noticed the little kiss at the end. A small giggle escaped her lips, and Scully immediately looked around to see if anyone had heard. She didn’t think so. So, she turned the note over, grabbed her own pen and wrote:

_Meet me behind the science lab at half three. Scully._ (Here she considered adding an x, but instead added a quick smiley face).

Mulder had sat down a few tables away from Scully after dropping the note, so Scully took the last few bites of her sandwich, put her lunchbox in her bag and pulled it on. She folded the note, and then walked towards Mulder’s table trying to seem confident. Mulder was not being very discreet and was very obviously watching her. This made her a little anxious, which then lead to her tripping on her boot laces. It was not a major fall, but she did stumble. She looked up, her cheeks bright red, and her eyes met Mulder’s. He was grinning and stifling a laugh. Scully smiled in response, not her normal automatic smile, but the soft genuine smile that rarely made itself known. She felt a little weak at the knees, and she was a mix of exhilarated and embarrassed. Not sure what to do, she stumbled over, dropped the note in front of Mulder and then quickly walked off.

Half three could not roll around quickly enough for either of them, and Mulder practically bounded (in a very discreet way) to the back of the science labs after school. He found Scully already stood there, eating some chocolate, looking slightly tired from the day. ‘Hey,” Mulder said, dumping his bag next to hers. “Hi,” she replied, mouth half full of chocolate.

“Can I have some?”

“Some of my chocolate?”

“Yeah.”

“No. Fuck off, it’s my chocolate.”

“Please Scully,” he said, putting on his most charming smile. And while that almost worked on Scully, she was very hungry, so she shook her head aggressively. Mulder stared at her, hoping to force her hand by staring into her eyeballs. She simply stared back, unwilling to back down on this bar of chocolate. Mulder quickly decided to steal some of the chocolate. He dipped his head down and bit a square of chocolate off, and then moved away as fast as he. She squealed in anger. “Mulder!” she yelled. He looked very guilty as he chomped down on the chocolate. She ran at him and gave him a small playful shove, and then punched him on the arm. “Hey no fair! I only did one thing you hit me twice. I’ll have to get payback.”

He shoved her back gently, careful not to actually hurt her, as she was a lot smaller than him. The playful smirk of someone who’d been in a lot of play-fights in their life came across Scully’s face, and she decided it was a good idea to retaliate. She shoved him against a wall, which just made his heart beat faster. He simply pulled the same move on her, turning the tables and pushing her against the wall. There was a small, tiny moment where Mulder considered what would happen if he asked to kiss her. But before his mind could wander, Scully had used his moment of distraction to push him to the ground, and they wrestled and rolled down the grassy hill beside the science block.

Mulder realised that they would soon crash into the wooden fence at the bottom of the hill, so he pulled away from Scully, completely exhilarated and enamored with her. They lay on the grass, staring up at the trees and listening to the silence for a minute, both mildly embarrassed that they had both almost got into a playfight when they were both nearly 15. “Hey Scully,” Mulder said, turning to face her.

“Yeah?”

“Can I have some chocolate?” he deadpanned, grinning at the same time.

“Shut up Mulder,” she said, yet she broke a piece of chocolate off from that bar that had been carefully stashed in her pocket. “We should probably wait until like, four, to go in. There’ll probably still be people hanging around for a while,” Scully said, trying to get back to the reason that they were here.

“What are we gonna do? That’s like,” he paused, to check is watch, “A whole 25 minutes.”

“I’m going to read,” said Scully. She walked back up the hill, grabbed both of their backpacks and brought them back down to where Mulder was sat. She sat back down, and she pulled her book out of her bag, laid back on the grass and began to read. Mulder smiled softly as she noticed the book, she had got from her bag was not the normal Moby Dick, but instead the copy of _The Fountains of Paradise_ he’d given her.

Mulder, however, didn’t have a book, or anything else to do, really. He tried lying in the grass and just thinking, but today he was particularly restless to get that bug under the microscope, so he soon got bored of just lying there. He rummaged through his bag to see if he had any food but found nothing apart from an empty packet of sunflower seeds. He really had to stop eating so many of those damn seeds. It was becoming an expensive habit, especially since everything seemed to cost more in this town.

He checked his watch to see how much time had passed. Three minutes. How had it only been three damn minutes. He stood up, and started circled around the area that they had been sat in. “Are you alright Mulder?” Scully said, sounding slightly disinterested.

“Erm, yeah. I’m gonna go to the toilet.”

“Alright.”

He walked off, trying to be as slow as possible, hoping that the walk to the other side of the school where the boy’s toilets were would take up some time. However, after having walked for about twenty seconds, he spotted Bill Scully ahead of him with about ten other goons. Knowing that Bill was kinda out to get him, Mulder quickly ran off in the other direction, and took the shorter route to the toilet, keeping his pace fast, and repeatedly checking behind him for Bill. He wasn’t really in the mood for an encounter with him, especially since Mulder was barely keeping his anger in check against him.

He went to the toilet, and then walked back to where Scully was sitting. He looked at his watch again. Only four minutes. He sat, staring at the grass for a minute, before looking up to see what Scully was doing. She was still heavily engrossed in the book, but he noticed that her eyes were puffy, and it looked like she’d been crying. Mulder immediately moved to sit closer to her, and asked, “Are you okay Scully?” She looked up from her book, and he saw the tears still welling in her eyes. “I’m fine,” she said, trying to avoid eye contact. He looked doubtful, and so he put his hand under her chin and softly tipped her face up so she couldn’t avert her gaze anymore.

When their eyes met, Scully couldn’t hold in tears anymore, and she let out a small sob, and leant forwards to bury her head in Mulder’s chest. She took comfort in the familiar Mulder smell and the softness of his jumper. “Hey, Scully, what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. It’s just this stuff with Bill and my mum… It’s getting to me.” Mulder, who was caring by nature, slipped her hand into his and gave it a soft squeeze. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“There’s not much to talk about. Bill thinks that if I want to have any chance at not being a freak, I shouldn’t hang out with you. He’s so obsessed with making me… better. Because apart from me, my family is perfect. I’m the one problem.”

“I find it hard to believe that you could ever be a problem to anyone.”

“I am. I don’t talk enough, and when I do it’s never about the right things. I never know how to act or what to do, and sometimes I just feel like I’m ruining everything for them.”

“Hey. That is not true.You aren't ruining anything. Look at me,” he said, angry that anyone would make her feel like that. She looked up, still partially resting against his chest. “You are the best damn thing to happen to me since I got to this stupid town. You’re smart, and funny, and you put up with me… And that’s pretty hard. So, whatever the fuck your family says, don’t listen.” Scully blushed a little at the complement, smiling a genuine smile through her tears. “Do you really mean all that?”

“Of course, I do. It’s not that far-out for me to say that you’re a pretty amazing person.”

“Thanks,” Scully said, seeming a little less upset. “You’re not that bad yourself.”

“Such high flattery,” Mulder said, grinning.

“Hey, I was nice to you, so shut up.”

“Fine,” said Mulder, putting his hands up in mock defense. “Now do you want to go look at this insect?” Scully nodded, and they both stood up, grabbed their stuff, and walked off to the science block door, hands still intwined. 


	10. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally, i deleiver on my promise of bi mulder. it will become an actual part of the story at some point, i have it planned out. also, it gets extra hurt/comforty in this chapter, but what can i say? i was sad when i wrote this

As they crept into the science block, Scully wondered if it was strange how comforting it was to have Mulder holding her hand. Having their fingers intertwined just felt right, yet she was terrified of how wrong it was. Bill could see. Her brain flashed back to the previous night, and a fresh wave of anxiety washed over her. Mulder, sensing her anxiety, softly rubbed his thumb along the back of her hand. Scully relaxed, an instead of releasing her hand from his, she squeezed tighter.

Scully refocused on the task as they silently opened the door of the science lab. Mulder let her hand go to pull the plastic bag containing the insects out of his bag, which slightly disappointed Scully. She was determined to stay on task, so she took the bag from Mulder and walked over to the workbench at the back of the classroom. Some science teacher had left the equipment for preparing a slide out, just as Scully had anticipated. She put the bag down on the side, and carefully began preparing the slide.

While Mulder was about as intelligent as Scully, he was completely out of his depth here, so he decided the most helpful thing he could do was to sit on the counter about a foot away from Scully, and wait for her to make some discovery that he could input on. He watched, in awe of how smart she was, and while he watched, he wondered if what just happened meant anything. She’d practically cuddled him for a minute, and she held his hand. The memory of it fresh on his mind made his heart flutter. But she could never like him. Of course, she couldn’t. Scully was too smart for that, Mulder decided, too smart for boys. And if she was interested in boys, it wouldn’t be in him, it would be in some sort of straight A boy who finely walked the line between intelligent and popular, someone just right.

Scully glanced up at Mulder for a moment and noticed that he was staring at her. Why was he looking at her like that? The possibility of him liking her flashed through her mind for a second. Scully tried to imagine it but couldn’t. Liking people seemed like some made up cultural phenomena to justify procreation. The stinging reminder that she wasn’t normal came through her mind as her mind wandered back to the fact that she’d never liked anyone before. Every other girl seemed to have had a million crushes and there she was, never having wanted anyone in that way _. I must be broken_ , she thought to herself. Mulder was still looking at her, even though she was just preparing a slide. As she took the insect from the bag, she looked up at him. “Why are you staring at me?” she asked.

“Oh, sorry I was just thinking.”

Scully scrunched her nose. “Weird.”

At that response, Mulder decided that she definitely didn’t like him. He’d had experience liking people before, and he had experience with people liking him back. He remembered how Jennifer Andrews had held his hand in a park in 6th grade, and how Mary Smith had kissed him on the cheek in seventh grade. He remembered how they’d acted. He thought of his first real kiss with Annie Edwards in eighth grade, and how she’d smiled at everything he’d said for weeks before that. They all followed a pattern of smiling at each other from across the room and having conversations where they giggled a bit too much, and then the eventual high point of their relationship, if you could even call it that at age 14. The only real outlier was Mark Roberts, who he hadn’t done any of the smiling or giggling with. They’d kissed secretly behind a bike shed three times at the end of ninth grade, before he moved away from Long Island. But none of them had acted like Scully. She was honest and when she smiled, she meant it and it felt so real. Mulder knew it was probably just his teenage hormones coming through, but at the same time he felt himself falling for Scully in a way he’d never done for Jennifer or Mary or Annie or Mark.

“Mulder?” Scully said, trying to snap him from his daydream state. “Mulder?”

“What?”

“I said, you should probably come look at this.” There was a hint of urgency in her voice.

“Alright,” Mulder said. Scully hadn’t wanted to believe him the night before when he said that the inside of the bugs looked mechanical, but peering down the microscope now, it was hard to disagree with him. She moved slightly out of the way to allow Mulder access to the microscope. He looked down, and saw the insect split open. Inside was tiny circuitry, wires and chips. From this magnification, it almost looked normal, but then he remembered how impossibly tiny they were. “Scully…” he began, not really sure what to say afterwards. “I know,” she breathed in response. They both moved away from the microscope to look at the bug, unable to comprehend what they were seeing.

“This can’t exist.”

“It’s like the TARDIS.”

“You watch Doctor Who?” Mulder asked, a little shocked that she would have seen it.

“Yeah. Do you?”

“I have all the series on VCR.”

“Even the new one?”

“I have up to series fifteen.”

“Really? I haven’t seen it yet.”

“You could come over and watch it some time, if you wanted.” Scully grinned. Despite firmly telling herself many times that she was just hanging around with Mulder for the science project and the science project alone, she found herself enjoying every opportunity to see him regardless of how it related to their work. And she had to admit, the idea of watching Doctor Who with Mulder seemed quite homely to her. Mulder’s house was nice enough, and she knew his mum worked a lot. Being able to mess around without the watchful eye of parents or teacher or “well-meaning” passers-by. The strict Catholic voice of conditioning reminded her that God can always see her, but Scully decided to ignore that voice in favour of the much more appealing experience of watching the new series of Doctor Who. She snapped back to the present, setting her daydreams of the future aside for a moment.

“That would be nice,” Scully replied, trying to ignore the fact that she’d paused for a little too long there. Mulder returned her smile from a moment ago and was about to make plans when the door burst open. The pair hastily turned around, for some reason feeling the need to shield what they’d just discovered. Mr. Vernon, the most uptight biology teacher in the school was glaring at them. Mulder was a little startled but remained cool as he fumbled to slide the bug back into the plastic bag which he then slid into his back pockets. The upside of being quite tall meant that he could do this without raising any suspicion.

Scully, on the other hand, had never gotten in trouble from a teacher before, and she was starting to panic. Her breathing sped up, and her body tensed. Mulder longed to reach out and hold her hand but decided that doing that in front of Mr. Vernon would only make Scully panic further. “What the hell are you two doing in here?” Vernon barked.

“Well,” Mulder began, before Mr. Vernon interrupted him again.

“Messing around with school property?”

“No, sir,” Scully started, but she too was interrupted.

“Trying to impress girls with this?” Vernon asked, very clearly addressing Mulder this time. But before Mulder had a chance to reply, Vernon had already yelled, “Do either of you care to explain yourself?” Both opened their mouths to defend themselves, but again, Vernon cut them off. “I don’t want to hear it! Detention. Now!” The pair hurriedly grabbed their backpacks and scrambled out of the classroom, not wanting to be yelled at anymore.

“I will be calling your parents!” Vernon cried as they left the room. That last remark sent Scully into a full-on spiral, and she slid down onto the floor the second they left the science block. She sat, her knees curled up to her face, burying her head into them, in some sort of attempt to protect herself from the outside world. She often did this when she was anxious, feeling that if she could sit in this constant, impenetrable position for long enough, whatever it was that was stressing her out would simply go away. Normally whenever she did this, she would either be ignored or criticized, usually by her parents or by the people in school.

Mulder, however, reacted differently. He sat close to her, but still allowed for personal space. He carefully put his hand on her leg, and muttered, “Is this okay?” She nodded, and continued to breathe faster and faster, unsure how to cope with the spiraling feeling inside her head. “I can’t get into trouble. They’ll find out I lied. I don’t want that.” She curled her fingers into her knees, digging hard at the flesh through her jeans. Mulder took her hands into his and whispered, “Do that to me if you have to do it to anyone.” In that moment, seeing Scully so terrified, Mulder felt a pang of guilt run across his chest. Partly because he’d brought her into this, because he’d done this to her. But mainly because he knew he couldn’t do anything about it.

He wished he could take her hand in his, and then run as fast as he could, and keep on running until she wasn’t afraid anymore. But he couldn’t. All he could do was offer some pathetic comfort from holding her hand and couldn’t do anything to stop the oncoming storm. He was still curling up inside when he noticed that Dana was starting to breathe a little slower, breath by breath, she was calming down. He rubbed her hands yet again, and murmured, “That’s good, just breathe slowly.” The pair fell into a position where they were simply clinging to each other, holding on tightly and not wanting to let go. Mulder wasn’t sure how long they could stay like this, but he knew that if she asked him to stay there forever, he would.

_Stop turning this into a romantic moment_ , he thought to himself. It felt wrong to see this as anything other than comforting her as her friend. He shouldn’t take advantage of how horrible everything was for her. “Mulder,” Scully whispered, not moving from her position of being nestled under his chin. “How angry do you think my mum will be?” Mulder sharply inhaled his breath, unsure of how to answer but angry that she had to worry. “I don’t know, Scully,” he said, and he turned his head to press a kiss into her hair. “But I’m here for you, as your friend.”

“Are we friends, Mulder?”

“Of course, we are. I don’t just hang out with you to get a good grade, you know. Like I said, you’re a pretty amazing person.”

“I’ve never really had a friend before,” she admitted, for some reason feeling a bit ashamed of saying, for some reason. She knew that Mulder would never judge, but she was still afraid. Mulder had done things, she was sure. Hung out with his friends late at night, kissed girls, broken the rules. Not massive acts of rebellion, but to Scully, who before Mulder, limited her rebellion to leaving for school early and wearing boys’ clothes and pretending she got it from the girl’s section.

“I have. Had a friend before, that is,” Mulder replied, in a matter of fact sort of way. “But I think you’re my favourite.” He could feel Scully smiled and hum contentedly at that. “You’re good at making things seem like they’re going to be okay. Even when they’re not,” Scully said, still a little anxious.

“Is that a complement?” Mulder asked.

“I like it.” Scully turned her head to face him, and they smiled half-heartedly at each other. Scully lamented on how it felt surprisingly nice to be close to someone. In that moment, both of them silently wished that they would never have to move from here. But inevitably, there was the sound of a door slamming in the science block. Mulder peaked his head up and looked through the door’s window. He saw Vernon strolling down the corridor, thankfully taking his time. “Shit, it’s Vernon. We’d better go.” Scully, fearful of getting into more trouble, quickly gathered her stuff to go to detention, despite really not wanting to be there. She checked back and saw Vernon approaching the door, so they both hurried off round the school to where detention was.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more words. with like, emotions. more hurt comfort. a bit of angst. it'll get worse in the next chapter.
> 
> also, to clairfy, if something is in italics, it means that that is what either mulder or scully is thinking

Mulder and Scully slipped into the back of detention, hoping not to be noticed. Scully especially hoped to remain unseen, as the overwhelming humiliation and fear from being in detention could only get worse if any of her classmates saw her in there. Mulder seemed unphased, which baffled Scully. She wondered for a minute what his mother was like. Scully had never met her, and every time Mulder talked about her, he talked about her in a way that made her seem more like a ghost or some sort of zombie.

She struck the thought from her head, the voice of her upbringing reminding her that thinking like that was rude. She turned to face Mulder, who was sat staring at the desk. Dana had only known Mulder for a few weeks. It was intense, knowing him. A month ago, she barely knew his name. Now he was the only one – the only one she could ever trust, the only one she could ever talk to. He was the best friend Scully had ever had, and she knew that in a few hours when the inevitable meeting between the headteacher and her mother and Mulder’s mum came, all that intense friendship would be taken away from her, made even more illicit than it was now.

Dana scolded herself internally. “You’re being dramatic,” came a voice from inside her head. “He doesn’t even like you. He’s using you for the grade and then he’ll just dump you for someone more interesting.” She knew it wasn’t true. Mulder was nicer to her than anyone had ever been before, but for some reason she allowed that little voice inside her head to slowly paint Mulder as the villain in her life. It seemed easier than letting him be the hero. “He’s only gonna get you into more trouble. And he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what your mother will say to you, how bad it’ll be. He just wants to carry on with his stupid alien quest.” Soon Scully was drowning in the thoughts, only letting herself think of all the horrible things that Mulder could do to her. It was overwhelming.

A soft nudge against her hand awoke her from her thoughts. It was Mulder, trying to get her attention, his hand rested close to hers on the shared desk. He moved his hand, and then passed her a tiny piece of paper under the desk. The words _are you okay? you were staring at me_ were written in tiny blue letter on the paper. Mulder smiled softly at her after she read the note, and with that smile all the thoughts that had dominated Scully’s mind a second ago faded into the background. Mulder passed her a pen, and she carefully wrote _I’m fine, I didn’t realise I was staring_. She then passed the note and pen back to Mulder, who pulled a mock disappointed face after reading it, as if to say, “Why weren’t you staring at me?”, which made Scully grin a little. Mulder quickly scribbled a reply, which Scully was about to read when the school’s secretary walked in and said, “Can I take Fox and Dana?” She looked at them, almost disapprovingly, and motioned for them to follow her.

The wave of fear that Mulder had temporarily pushed back rolled over Scully faster than she could cope with, and the soft hand squeeze from Mulder wasn't enough to calm her down this time. Scully tried desperately to keep her breathing in control, focusing solely on trying to appear calm. Of course, the slow breathing was supposed to calm herself down, but at this point Scully couldn’t think of anything that could take away the terror she felt. They walked into the small waiting room outside the headteacher’s office. It smelt of shit coffee and ink, and the chairs they were told to wait on had a woolen cover that itched both of them through their clothes.

Scully squirmed in her seat, trying to find a position she could sit in where the stupid cover wasn’t scratching her. The secretary gave her a piercing look that Scully read as “Sit still,”. So, she did, and she blushed very heavily at the slight amount of trouble she’d got into. Scully had spent her entire life being the most perfect student she could be, always doing the right thing by her teachers and family and friends. So now the slightest amount of chastisement or punishment absolutely terrified her. Meanwhile, Mulder was characteristically unphased by everything that was happening. For a moment, Scully wished that they could have a Freaky Friday moment, and that she could be in a situation where she didn’t have to be absolutely terrified of getting trouble.

A woman walked into the room that Scully didn’t recognise. Mulder clearly did, and she cast him a slight glance before going over to the secretary’s desk. “You called me to come in?” she said.

“Are you Mrs. Mulder?” the secretary asked. The woman blushed a little, before replying.

“Erm, yes, that’s me.” Scully saw the face Mulder's mum pulled before answering, and remembered the conversation about Mulder's parents divorce with her parents earlier this week. People were very judgmental in this town.

“If you would just wait for the other parent to arrive, and then you can go in to talk Mr. Lee,” the secretary said. Mulder’s mum sat down across from the pair of teens. “Hey Mum,” Mulder said, looking to the floor as he spoke. “Hello Fox,” said the woman calmly, not seeming to be interested in what was happening. She just stared at the wall and said nothing more. Scully realised why Mulder had been so calm. His mother didn’t care if he got into trouble. No wonder he didn’t see phased by what was happening. The urge for a Freaky Friday moment to occur right there and then grew.

The three sat in silence, all staring at the walls and occasionally at each other. Mulder would have started to find it awkward pretty soon, but before the awkwardness could set in, Scully’s mother walked in, already looking angrier than he’d seen his mother in a long time. She glared at Dana but didn’t say anything. She went up to the secretary, and said, “I’m here to see Mr. Lee.”

“I’ll tell him you’re both here,” the secretary replied, seeming uninterested. She knocked on the door and walked into the headteacher’s office. Mulder noticed Scully grip her fingers around the edges of her chair. She did this whenever she was anxious, and he longed to hold her hands and comfort her. Scully’s mother turned to her. “What the hell Dana? I get a call from the headteacher saying you’ve broken into the science lab, to mess around with some boy? Who you said you didn’t know? What the hell is wrong with you?” Scully stared at her feet, paralysed.

Scully just stared dead at the floor, hoping that if she did nothing, said nothing that it would end soon. And then relief hit her when she heard the headteacher, Mr. Lee, say “Can I talk to Mrs. Mulder and Mrs. Scully alone first please?” Mulder’s mum stood and strolled into the office, with Scully’s mum following behind, staring at Scully with a passive-aggressive look until the door slammed. Mulder and Scully looked to each other, both secretly trying not to cry. But before anything could be said, the secretary’s phone rang, causing Scully to jump slightly. The secretary picked it up. “Yeah.” Pause. “Uh-huh.” Pause again. “I’ll bring them over now.” She picked up a folder, stuffed full with papers. “Good-bye.” She put the phone down and stood up.

“Stay here. Don’t go running off,” she said, pointing the folder to the pair as she left the room. As she left, they both breathed a sigh of relief, glad to be free from the adult gaze for a moment. Mulder wanted to comfort Scully, but was unsure how, as she shied away from the touch he placed on her arm. “Scully,” he said, struggling internally for what to say. “It’s gonna be okay.” Scully turned back to face him; her eyes welled up with tears that she wasn’t permitting to be released. “No, it’s not,” she half cried, half whimpered. Mulder nodded. “You’re right, it’s not.” He felt himself become overcome by the urge to cry that was now affecting both of them. He was so frustrated that she was hurt, so frustrated that he couldn’t help her. He’d always been a tactile person. When someone was hurt, when someone was happy, he liked physical contact. It was how he related to the people he loved.

But now Mulder could tell that that wasn’t what Scully needed right now, because no number of hugs and kind words murmured in her ear could solve the problem. “Run away with me," Mulder said, seeming both sarcastic and serious at the same time. Scully turned to Mulder with shock. “What?” she sniffed.

“Let’s just leave. We can go.”

“It won’t solve anything,” Scully said, “We’ll just have to get yelled at in three hours instead of three minutes.” At that moment, Mulder longed to entertain fantastical notions of the pair of them running off to the hills together, being happy and safe and comfortable and together in a way he knew would be impossible. “C’mon Scully. We can get out of here. Even if it’s only for a bit. We could just hang out, watch some Doctor Who,” he joked, feigning a smile that he hoped would cheer her up.

“Mulder we can’t. You can’t escape from every situation you don’t like with some fantasy.”

“Why not? Why can’t I want for you to be happy? For us to be happy?”

“Because that’s not how it works,” she said, seeming tired.

“We could be happier. This isn’t all there is,” Mulder said, looking around the drab old office and out the window to the rows of old houses and the mountains beyond. “There is a reality where you could be happy. I know it's out there.”

“Mulder, that is science fiction.” Mulder stared sadly at her. It didn’t hurt so much when she dismissed his crazy ramblings about aliens or government conspiracies, but it stung him right to his core when she simply dismissed the idea that she could ever be happy like it was something out of The Fountains of Paradise. “But Scully,” he protested, before she cut him off. 

“Mulder would you just drop it already? For fuck’s sake! It's fine. I'm fine. Stop trying to save me from something that isn't real!” she yelled, in a way she didn’t normally yell. The urge to apologise immediately hit her, but before she could, the secretary walked back into the room at the same time as the headteacher opened the door of his office and asked Mulder and Scully to come in. They both walked in quickly and with no comment, hoping not to get into more trouble. They both sat down on more itchy chairs, between their parents.

“So I’ve been through what happened with both of your mothers,” Mr. Lee began, “And I answered Mrs. Scully’s questions to the best of my ability, but I think that there are some things that you all need to discuss before we talk about consequences for your actions.” There was an awkward pause, and all their eyes shifted around the room, none hoping to look at another.

“I was aware that Fox and Dana were working on a biology project together. But these sorts of escapades seem to be something more than just a class partnership,” Mr. Lee continued, clearly speaking to the questions Scully’s mum had asked earlier. Scully looked at Mr. Lee quizzically, unsure what it was that he was implying. “Do either of you have anything to say?” Mulder and Scully shifted in their seats. Neither one of them wanted to speak. “Well it’s pretty clear what happened here,” Mrs. Scully said, clearing the silence. “Is it?” muttered Mulder’s mum quietly, which no one but Mulder noticed. “I hate to be rude, but my daughter has always been a good student. She’s never been in this kind of trouble before.” Mr. Lee nodded. It was true after all. Dana had been a notorious rule follower her entire life, and this was her first formal slip up. “But Fox here…” Mrs. Scully trailed off. Everyone waited for her to continue.

“Well what do we know about him?” Mrs. Scully asked, gesturing wildly. “All we know is that he clearly doesn’t come from a good home! So, God knows what he’s been corrupting my daughter with."

“Mum,” Dana hissed angrily. Both Mr. Lee and Mulder turned to Mrs. Mulder to see what she would say. Everyone in the room fully expected her to scream back, but instead she just calmly said, “Fox is a good boy. He didn’t corrupt her.”

“How the hell else do you explain it? He’s ruined her excellent academic record, and it was probably all to fulfill some perverse needs. You know what boys like him are like!”

“What do you mean boys like him Mum? Mulder didn’t do anything.”

“Of course, he has Dana! Or are you really going to tell me that you had the guts to do something like this on your own?” And although Scully knew that she did have the guts to do something like this on her own, and she had done it on her own, she couldn’t quite bring herself to say it. She was so scared. And Mulder could see it. He could feel it radiating off her and it was so painful to see her like this. “Scully, it’s okay,” he said, softly, before speaking louder. “It was my fault. I got Scully to sneak into the science lab with me. I was looking for an easy A, and I was going to get it with her. I just got bored.” It was a half-hearted excuse, and Scully and Mulder’s mum could tell it was a terrible lie, but apparently it was a credible explanation to Mr. Lee and Mrs. Scully.

The adults soon started discussing detentions and re-assigning Scully as Mulder’s biology partner. Mulder and Scully faded into the background, their eyes meeting, feeling so close. Scully silently thanked Mulder for protecting her. He saw it in her soft smile, but she felt the need to mouth it to him afterwards, which made him grin a tiny bit. Before either of them really knew what was happening, they were being encouraged out of the office by their parents and being dragged in separate directions to separate cars which would take them to separate houses, when all they wanted was to be together.

As Scully lay in bed late that night after hours of lecturing and yelling, she wondered if she would ever see Mulder again. Not just see him, but be close to him. Feel his heart beating so close to her as he held her. Scully had never been touchy feely. She’d hated forced hugs on Christmas and birthdays. She’d rejected the seemingly common and overbearing hugs from girls she’d been forced to hang out with when she was younger. But with Mulder, it was all different. He felt safe, comfortable to touch. When he held her close, his head resting on hers (he was much taller than her) it felt just right. Like Goldilocks, Dana thought, her mind flicking back to the story of the house where there was something that was just right. But in this house, nothing was just right. With Mulder, she found her perfect bowl of porridge, so to speak.

And just as she started to think about how much she missed him, she heard the sound of rocks being flicked at her window. She’d seen this happen in rom coms before. But she always thought that no boy in real life would do anything so sweet. But as she looked out her window, she realised that Mulder wasn’t just a boy. He wasn’t even from around her. She assumed Long Island boys were different. _What the hell?_. When did she start thinking of Mulder as a boy? He wasn’t a _boy_ ; he was just a friend who happened to be a boy. Just a friend. That’s what she reminded herself of as she slid down the tree to where Mulder was stood.

“Hey,” he said softly. “I missed you.” The soft words and smile made Dana swell with emotion, and she threw herself into his arms. She hoped she'd never have to leave.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had chapters 12 + 13 but im an idiot who can't save a word document so it'll take a while for the next chapter

But of course, Scully did have to leave eventually. She had to pull away from the softness of his winter coat, which seemed sensible as it was a pretty cold night. That’s when Scully noticed how cold it was when she wasn’t climbing down the tree or wrapped in Mulder’s arms. “I should get a coat,” Scully said, when the cold started to set in. “Here, take mine,” Mulder said, barely thinking as he unbuttoned his coat to give it to her. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Scully said, and she began to climb up the tree. Mulder felt a little dejected as she’d completely rejected his romantic gesture, but he supposed throwing rocks at her window in the middle of the night after they’d been forbidden from seeing each other was romantic gesture enough for one night.

She came back the tree a minute later, wearing a thick coat with bobble buttons that Mulder thought made Scully look adorable. But all he could bring himself to say was “Nice coat.”

“Thanks,” Scully said with a laugh.

And so, the pair lay on the grass beneath Scully’s window, eventually cuddling close to each other to protect themselves from the cold night. They pointed at the stars, and Scully told Mulder all about the constellations and what people thought they meant. Mulder teased her for being a nerd. Scully defended herself, and Mulder explained he’d been joking. They returned to comfortable silence.

“You couldn’t see the stars this well in Long Island,” Mulder explained, after a few minutes.

“That’s a shame. They’re beautiful.”

“Yeah, they are.”

Mulder wasn’t looking at the stars.

Eventually, it became too cold. Scully berated Mulder to go home, despite the fact that she wanted him to stay. Mulder gave in and agreed to leave after much annoying from Scully. They hugged quickly and awkwardly once, and then again more comfortably and for much longer. Mulder pressed a soft kiss into Scully’s head. Scully didn’t know how to describe how it made her feel. Whatever it was, she continued to feel it as she watched Mulder walk away and disappear around the corner.

She laid awake in bed. It was a Saturday; she could lie in if she wanted to. She couldn’t sleep. After trying to read The Fountains of Paradise, and then Moby Dick, Scully turned to reading a trashy romance novel she’d got for Christmas. Once she’d been reading for a couple hours, the sun was rising. And just as the sun hit the pages of her book, she read the words _A perfect fantasy_. It pained her internally that she related. She put the book down and stared up at the ceiling. Hours ago, she’d been laid in the same position in the cold grass, but somehow then, despite being laid out in the street in the middle of the night, she felt safer. She let the memory of laying with her head rested on Mulder’s chest wash over her as she fell asleep.

Meanwhile Mulder laid in his bed a few streets over, thinking of the same thing. He’d endured a slight telling off earlier talk, and he’d apologised for it and assumed it was over. That was until his mother walked into his bedroom fully dressed. This wasn’t a surprise to him, as she worked weird hours and often came to tell him when she was leaving. What was a surprise, however, was what she said to him?

“Why did you lie?”

“What?” Mulder said, sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes.

“Why did you lie to that teacher? I know what you said isn’t like you. You’re a good kid.”

“She was gonna get in trouble. I didn’t want her to be hurt.” His mother nodded in response, seeming to understand. She walked out of the room, and just before she left, she turned around and asked, “You really like her, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Mulder replied without hesitating. His mother left, leaving Mulder stunned. Not that she knew that he liked Scully – that was glaringly obvious to anyone who wasn’t Scully. But she’d talked to him. He hadn’t talked to a mum in a way that felt this real for years. Not since everything that had happened. He could hardly believe it. It was turning out to be a very weird day. Mulder fell asleep after eating some cereal at around 9. By the time he woke up it was dark outside, and it appeared that his mum had been and gone. He fumbled around and made himself some toast, and then sat down on the couch. He popped a Doctor Who tape, and grinned since watching it reminded him of Scully. It was bittersweet though, with the nagging reminder that they’d probably never get to do this together. But, still, he allowed himself to relax into episode with all its bad props and crazy storylines.

Mulder remained in a similar position until about two in the morning, when he was still wide awake. His mum had just walked in, thrown her stuff down and immediately gone to sleep, so he decided to put his plan into action. It was exactly the same as the night before. He pulled on his coat and boots, and silently slid out of the door, and walked off into the night towards Scully’s house. As he walked, Mulder hoped that the move he’d pulled last night would work again. Scully had seemed vaguely happy to see him last night, but if he knew one thing about Scully it was that she wasn’t easy to read. Mulder had prided himself his whole life for his ability to read people easily, but with Scully, it was a lot harder than with anyone else.

Mulder passed a house across from Scully’s with a gravel driveway, and he quickly scooped up a handful of stones and walked over to Scully’s window. Every other window in the house was dark by this point, as he had expected. But in Scully’s window there was a slight amount of light spilling out. She was probably still awake if her sleep schedule had been like his. He took a deep breath, hoping not to get in trouble, and flicked a stone at Scully’s window. No response. He threw another. And another. He’d thrown another six before a very sleepy looking Scully appeared at the window. Shit. He’d clearly miscalculated her sleeping pattern. She slid open her window.

“What the fuck are you doing Mulder?”

“I came to see you, moron.”

“It’s 2am Mulder.”

“It was 2am yesterday when I came to see you,” Mulder mumbled sheepishly.

“Mulder, I can’t hear you. Get up here.”

“Really?”

“Quietly.”

Mulder grinned, rolled up his sleeves and began to scale the tree. Scully couldn’t help but glance at his arms suddenly exposed. A little voice inside her head was appreciative of his slightly muscular arms, but she igored to it. She was more focused on the cold air seeping into her room and how dangerous it was sneaking Mulder into her room in the middle of the night. Mulder got up the tree with ease and sat on the window-ledge. He then took off his boots and tied them together, and then flung them over a tree branch. Scully looked at him with a slightly puzzled expression. “What? I don’t want to get your carpet dirty,” Mulder said. Scully smiled appreciatively. She was secretly very proud of having perfect white carpets. It was one of the few things she actually liked about her room. The room which Mulder was now looking around, seeming to analyse everything he saw.

“So, this is your room,” Mulder said, eyes focusing on a picture on Scully’s dressing table.

“Yeah…” Scully said, quietly, unsure what to say. She shoved her hands into her pockets, and then realised how little she was dressed. She was wearing shorts that barely covered her thighs, and a thin tank top. The house had been warm, and she’d woken up in the middle of the day sweating. Immediately self-conscious, she grabbed her dressing gown from the back of her door and quickly pulled it on. “It’s exactly how I expected it to look,” Mulder said, who was now stood as awkwardly as she was. Scully sat down on her bed and indicated for him to do the same. “What do you mean? My room is nothing like me.” Mulder had taken her pointing to the end of her bed as a signal to sit on the floor by the far end of her bed. He leaned against the bed and gazed up at her, noticing how she looked in this soft lighting.

“Mulder?” Scully asked, wondering why he was just staring at her and not answering her question.

“Yeah?” he said, still not out of his reverent state.

“I asked you a question.”

“Oh, yeah. Erm. I just mean that it all either matches your personality or your family.”

“What?” Scully said, still confused by what Mulder was saying.

“Some parts of it are very you,” Mulder replied. “It’s perfectly clean. Loads of books. Cuddly toys. Not much wardrobe space but a lot of drawer space. Photos of your sister and your little brother – but none of Bill. It matches you.” He pointed to the things he said as he listed them. Scully giggled a little nervously, and said, “That’s kinda creepy Mulder. You should like, work for the FBI or something. You’d make a good investigator.” Mulder laughed.

“I couldn’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“I have problems with authority.”

“Oh yeah, because you are such a bad boy Mulder.”

“I am. Have you met me? I am terrible at being a boy.” Scully laughed a little louder than she should have done, and she immediately covered her mouth with a pillow. “Stop being loud,” Mulder said, smirking a little at the sex joke playing out in his head. “What are you smiling at?” Scully said, instantly recognising that smirk that people did when they had a dirty joke in mind. “Nothing,” Mulder said quickly. There was a pause while Scully tried to figure out what he had meant. Mulder could practically see the cogs turning until they clicked, and a huge grin spread across her face. “Mulder,” she hissed, laughing into her pillow. “You’re gross!” she said, and softly punched his arm.

“I’m gross? I’m not the one with some weird crust on my face.”

“What do you mean? There is no such crust on my face. You’re a liar.”

“There is, it’s like right below your eye,” Mulder said, moving onto her bed to get closer to her. He leaned in and tried to brush it off her face. At first, Scully held him back, hold his hands away from her. Mulder pouted at her, his face asking to let him touch her. Scully softened pretty quickly after that, and allowed Mulder to brush the crumbs off her face. She wasn’t immune to being charmed, after all. He cupped her face with one hand, telling himself he was just doing it to keep her head still. With his other hand, he softly rubbed the crust off her cheek with his thumb.

Scully kept waiting for him to stop softly rubbing his hand across her face, even though she was enjoying it. But he kept gazing at her with that signature Mulder stare, and just carefully caressing her cheek. Neither was sure what was happening, but whatever it was, both of them were enjoying it.

Scully became very aware that their faces were quite close together, and that Mulder was slowly moving closer. _Shit, shit, shit_. Scully could barely think. _Is he gonna kiss me?_ Mulder moved closer, and for a second, he tore his eyes from hers to her lips _. He’s gonna kiss me._

Scully could barely focus on a thought. _Mulder was going to kiss me. Does that mean he likes me? I want to kiss him too. I don’t know how to kiss. How do I kiss. If I can’t kiss Mulder won’t like me._

_Shit._


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote another chapter, shockingly. and i also sort of planned out this fic. another shock

Scully really wanted Mulder to kiss her. She wasn’t sure how to deal with this feeling, or how to deal with the fact that she didn’t know how to kiss. So, despite her unexpected eagerness to kiss Mulder, her facial expression was a very anxious. Mulder hadn’t known Scully that long, but he had known her long enough to be able to identify when she was scared just by looking at her face. From being so close to her face, Mulder could see all the signs. She was chewing on her lips slightly and kept avoiding eye contact. Her eyes were slightly wider than usual, and her brow was furrowed.

_She doesn’t want to kiss me._

As painful as it was, Mulder pulled away from Scully, knowing that she didn’t want this. Scully made a face, disappointed at the sudden lack of Mulder. In that moment, as they stared at each other from opposite ends of the bed, they both decided that they had misread the signals and that the other didn’t want to kiss them. “So, erm, do you want to go for a walk?”

“What?” Mulder asked.

“We can go for a walk. It’s better than sitting in here. You know my parents could wake up.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

“I don’t have any shoes.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Not up here. And my father is sleeping downstairs tonight. He’s leaving for work kinda early tomorrow morning and he didn’t want to wake my mum up.” Scully relayed the official reasoning for her dad sleeping on the sofa to Mulder. A variation on that explanation was told to Dana and her siblings every night, and they all nodded and pretended to believe it. They all lived together, and some days it seemed all happy families, but most days it was sleeping on the sofa and conversation that was exactly the same as the day before and acting like things were fine.

Scully returned to the moment, and back to the more pressing issue of her lack of shoes. She sighed heavily when she was unable to think of alternative. “I guess it doesn’t matter. We don’t have to go for a walk.”

“I could give you a piggyback.”

“Mulder.”

“What’s wrong with a piggyback?”

“I’m not eight years old.”

“But you don’t have any shoes.” The pair stared at each other, then Mulder gave Scully some puppy eyes, and with that Scully gave in. “Fine.” Mulder beamed, because as much as he’d wanted Scully to agree to a piggyback, he hadn’t actually believed she’d concede to it.

“We can just go down to the butchers. There’s some benches there so I want have to hold you for ages.”

“Okay. Let’s go.” Mulder walked over to the window ledge, sat down, and swung his feet over the edge. He started putting his shoes on, while watching Scully stand a little awkwardly, as if she was waiting for a bus. After Mulder had laced up his boots, he climbed out onto the tree and offered his hand to help Scully through the window. Scully smirked. “I appreciate the gentlemanly statement, but that’s actually quite dangerous. And I’m perfectly capable.” With that, Scully slipped out the window and quickly climbed down before Mulder could respond. She waited on the lowest branch while Mulder climbed down much slower, a little in awe at her speed and agility.

Mulder got off the tree and crouched down slightly so that Scully could easily get onto his back. She climbed on and gripped onto his shoulder’s a little too tightly. Mulder didn’t mind. “If you tell anyone about this I will…” Scully paused to think of a good threat. “I won’t talk to you for a whole day.”

“Alright then, if you’re gonna threaten me with that. My lips are sealed.” Scully grinned, thinking her threat had worked, not detecting the hint of sarcasm in his voice. But he would stay true to his word, and he would never tell another person about the thirty second piggyback he gave her that night. “Hold on tight,” Mulder said, and with that, he tore off down the middle of the road, running as fast as he could while holding another person on his back. Scully squealed in fear initially, but trying to seem tough, she stayed quiet. Mulder could still tell she was a little scared from the way her hands gripped onto him tighter and tighter.

Travelling like this was actually pretty fast, and they arrived at the picnic bench outside the butchers much quicker than Scully had expected. Mulder carefully set Scully down on the table part of the bench, which she then laid back on, giggling from fear and excitement. “You okay?” Mulder asked, a little anxious that he’d taken it too far.

“I’m fine. I just wasn’t expecting you to go so fast.”

“Well I didn’t want to waste any time. I know you’d be very embarrassed if someone had seen you getting a piggyback off me.” Scully pulled a face.

“I’m not embarrassed. It’s just people here talk, and you know, my parents. But I don’t want you to think that it was anything to do with you.”

“Hey. Scully. I was joking. You really worry about that don’t you?”

“About what?”

“About me not liking you.”

“Well you’re about the only person who does. So, I’m basically all in with you. If you don’t like me then I’ve got no one. It goes against everything I’ve ever told myself, but I actually don’t like not having anyone to talk to and shit.”

“It’s not true that I’m not the only one who likes you.”

“Really? Who else likes me?”

“Your siblings do.” Scully simply raised her eyebrow and stared at Mulder with a dead expression. “Okay fine, Melissa and Charlie do.”

“You remembered their names.”

“You’re the only person I’ve got too. So that’s about all I have to remember.” Scully nodded, silently agreeing that three names were not actually that many to remember. “You have your mum, at least.”

“I don’t have my mum. She’s always working or crying or making tea that she’s not going to drink,” Mulder said matter-of-factly, staring at the cracks on the table. There was silence for a minute, as Scully was unsure what to do with this personal and intrusive piece of information that she’d been given about Mulder’s home life. “Well what I mean is that she cares about you. She’s in your corner.” Mulder didn’t respond. “At least from what I’ve seen.” Mulder nodded, and stayed silent as he picked at the broken splinters coming off the tabletop. An awkward silence fell over the pair.

“My parents would get divorced if they weren’t Catholic. They haven’t been together since Charlie was born. Everyone knows it. But they just don’t say anything. Every day. No one says anything.” Mulder looked down at her, a little shocked by her sudden admission. Her sudden honesty encouraged the same in him.

“Sometimes I think that my mum will never get back to how she was before Sam disappeared. She’s almost exactly the same as she was the day after she disappeared.”

“My brother almost had a restraining order put on him.”

“From who?”

“His ex-girlfriend.”

“Fuck. My mum has a restraining order on my dad.”

“What for?”

“He said that it wasn’t safe for me to be living with my mum anymore. Said I was going crazy. He wanted to put me in a ‘home’.” Mulder put air quotes around the word “home”.

“So, she put a restraining order on him?”

“No. She took me to some fancy psychologist. He said I was traumatized and “using a paranormal justification of my sister’s disappearance to mentally protect myself” but he did say that I was perfectly safe, and that I was at no risk to myself or others.”

“Then what?”

“Then my dad tried to do it anyway. My mum found out the day before it was due to happen. We moved into a hotel for a while. Once the restraining order was filed, we came here. She said she didn’t even want to be in the same state as him.”

“Holy shit.”

“I know. It took me a long time to even process what happened.”

“Yeah. That’s fucked up.”

“So, what’s your big family secret then?”

“Other than what I’ve told you?”

“Other than that.”

“Nothing much really. We’re pretty normal.”

“Right. Of course.”

“What?”

“Well it’s just that from my limited observations of the Scully family, things don’t exactly seem normal.” Scully sat silently for a second. “Well, I guess things aren’t ideal. But it’s all fine. Honestly.” Mulder leaned back so that he was lying next to Scully. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” he said, completely genuinely. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, it’s just that there isn’t anything to talk about. There’s no big secret that I’m keeping from you.”

“Okay then.”

“Shut up Mulder.”

“I am. I’m looking at the stars.”

And that’s what they did, laying in the cold on the bench, both aware that there was definitely a big secret that Scully wasn’t talking about. Mulder was sure that Scully family contained some bigger secrets than emotionally manipulative parents, a potential separation and an almost restraining order. They were too smooth and clean for everything to be okay. People who were okay tended to be messy.

Mulder only knew this because he was so well associated with the perfectly clean and tidy house and family hiding a magnitude of secrets. His sister’s abduction, his parent’s divorce, what his father thought of him. The secrets all spilt out of that one night in 1973. Mulder sometimes wondered that if he just put a lid on that one night then all the other problems would drain away like they had never existed. But it was too late now. His parents would never speak again, and he would probably never see his sister again. He rarely admitted that to himself, and he would never say it out loud, but sometimes the thought crept into the farthest recesses of his brain.

“Mulder,” Scully said, swatting at his hand.”

“What?”

“My feet are frozen.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t feel my toes. They’re too cold. You need to piggyback me home.”

“Fine. Do you want me to go fast again?”

“It’s fine, you can go slow.” The mood between them was softer now, and Mulder wasn’t sure it would be appropriate to be that playful now. So, he let Scully climb onto his back, and walked slowly, appreciating how nice it was to be this close to her. Scully was secretly thinking the same thing. It was warmer on Mulder’s back than it was on the bench, anyway. She tried to distract herself from what she was thinking and all the massive implications of it. “I meant what I said. I will ignore you for a full day if you tell anyone about it.”

“I can keep my mouth shut, don’t worry Scully.”

“Good. Now put me down here.”

“What? Why?”

“My dad might be coming out of the house when I get back. I’d rather he saw just me sneaking back in than you carrying me back so I can sneak back in.”

“Won’t your feet get hurt?”

“My socks are thick. And anyway, this is a small town in Montana. It’s not like there’s glass and metal all over the floor.”

“Okay, well, be careful anyway.” Scully’s smile softened at Mulder being so concerned over her. It was different. But nice. “I will be.” And without really thinking, she leaned in and kissed Mulder on the cheek, which made a blush spill across his face. “Erm, bye,” she said, panicking. She then ran off as fast as she could, her pink fluffy socks flashing behind her as she ran. “Bye,” Mulder said, but she was already gone. He watched her for a second, before turning away and walking home, grinning from ear to ear because Dana Scully had just done that to him.

A similar grin was spread across Scully’s face as she neared the tree by her window. It was probably because her mind was so occupied with the half-kiss, she’d just given Mulder and the fact that she had kinda lied about not having a big family secret that meant she didn’t notice a person approach her from behind. And it was probably because her brain was so busy that by the time she went to scream, a hand was already covering her mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm gonna change this work into a series, because i just want to break it up that way.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hoky fuck I haven't posted in a long time. But I wanted to write this, to give the first part of this story some completion. I wrote this fanfic when I was really unhappy, and it was escapism for me. I'm a little bit happier, which is good. But I miss the fictional universe of this fanfic. So here I am writing this chapter! Enjoy :)

Fox Mulder hadn't had much time to consider crushes in a serious way. He'd had time to think of the way it made him forget all his problems when he was with someone who he liked, but not time to consider wanting to be with somebody just because... Because they were them and you were you and nothing else in the universe had ever seemed more right. 

He had plenty of time to think those exact thoughts as he walked back home through the quiet Montana streets that night. The stars and the streelights that should have been replaced years ago lit his way, adding an almost romantic air to the walk. Mulder was reminded of the way it felt to have Scully's lips on his cheeks and to have her held close to him. That memory spread a warm, soft feeling throughout his body and it seemed like it would last forever. 

In reality, it only lasted eight hours, until Mulder was waiting outside the high school, eagerly anticipating the arrival of Scully. He was practically bouncing, unable to control the excitment he felt at seeing her again. It had only been a few hours. That was too many. But as time passed and Scully didn't arrive, the bounce became standing still which became slowly rocking himself for comfort. She was probably just ill. There was an early autumn cold going around. And being out last night in the streets with no socks on probably didn't help. That's what he repeated to himself over and over agian, trying to comfort himslef throughout every lesson that day. Through the evening and the night. And then the next day when she didn't appear outside the school again. She was so tangible in Mulder's mind. Cheeks slightly red from walking, dressed in jeans and a sweater, looking ready to climb a tree or save the world or visit the stars or do anything really. Mulder couldn't imagine Scully being incapable of doing anything. But she was only tangible in his mind, and she didn't appear that day or the next.

Mulder finally resolved to go to her house, because this was lasting a lot longer than a cold should. He got right up to her house that afternoon, looking to the front door, ready to knock. But he didn't. He didn't because of the slight worry of how much worse he could make things. Although Scully was not ready to divulge any of her big family secrets to him, Mulder could read one of them right off her face. Because families weren't supposed to make us cry and shake and panic like that. The way she had clung to him in terror wasn't how you should feel about your parents. That's how you felt about the Big Bad Wolf or the monster under your bed. And so Mulder didn't go to her house, because he knew it would make it worse. She wasn't ill. Somehow her parents had found out about... everything, and now she was being kept away in there. And if he showed up, knocking on the door, demanding to see her, he knew that it would only make things ten times worse for her. As much as Mulder just wanted to see her, to feel her arm press against him as they sat beside one another, staring up at the stars, there was something he wanted more. And if he showed up, he knew she couldn't have that.

Despite all that, Mulder still expected her to show up on Monday for school. Beaten down, whether that was mentally or physically. He was expecting her to show up on that Monday. But she didn't. Another day passed. It had been a week since he'd seen her. This wasn't normal. Then another week passed. Mulder realised this as he walked the streets, yet again determinded to knock on her door and demand to know if she was okay. He realised that two weeks wasn't normal. He didn't want to assume that there could be anything more wrong than a evil family. Anything... alien. Because that thread of alien problems seemed to follow him around, everywhere he went, destroying people and lives and marriages, but goddamnit it wasn't supposed to get its grip on her. It had already taken Sam. And his mother. Not Scully too. So he pushed the thought down as he walked away from her house, once again too afraid to knock.

The thought tried to work it's way into the forefront of his mind as he paced through streets and fields, unaware of it getting darker and darker. Though he was crying from the horror of it, from the sheer possibility that it, that they, could have got their grip around Scully, and it was all his fault, he couldn't acknowledge it. He couldn't allow it to float to the top of his mind, because then it would be too real too soon. For all Mulder knew, Scully could turn up tommorow at school, smiling widley, holding onto her backpack like nothing had ever happened. So the thought got pushed further and further down as he walked further and further. 

He found himself on the top of a hill overlooking the town, overlooking the military base, overlooking everything that seemed to exist to him now. The roads laid out before him seemed to trace out every memory of Scully, of exhilirating bicycle rides at 2am and of screaming at each other and of almost kissing each other and crying for each other and it was all there laid out around him, completely inescapable because that's all this town was to him now. It was her and the trail of memories that she left behind her.

So Mulder laid down in the long grass and looked away from the town, and looked to the military base ,which although inextricably linked to Scully, made him less sad to think of. Time passed. It was still dark. Or was it? Mulder wasn't really sure. It was dark when he noticed. The lights playing around in the sky like fairies, except huge and terrifying. He noticed them. "Holy shit." It felt like the first thing he had ever said. The lights, the ships, the whatever they weres, were floating above the military base, with huge flashlight beams pointing up at them, coming from inside the base itself. And then suddenly it all slammed together in his mid so fast he could barely sit up.

Scully's father. His job. The missing children. The secrets. Scully's fear. The reason things weren't okay in that house. And the robots or fireflies and lights and sightings and flashlights and the whispers and silence and screaming and the fact that he was here at all.

"Scully?" he whispered out, looking to the lights in the sky. At first it was deadly silent, but then like a call to the Gods, he screamed again, suddenly aware of where she was. "Scully!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this :) There will be a second part to this series coming at some point. I don't know when, but this isn't the end. Thank you to everyone who read and supported this, it made me so happy.


End file.
